


If the Fates Allow

by Saras_Girl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 03:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 80,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saras_Girl/pseuds/Saras_Girl
Summary: What's that crackling in the walls?Harry has no clue at all.He'll eat some cake and drink some wineBecause he is completely FINE.--A story about life's disregard for our plans.[2017 advent story]





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> AN – First of all, the days/dates for December 2014 do not match the real ones. They failed to suit my purposes.
> 
> As always, this advent fic was a labour of love, tears and narrowly-avoided mental breakdowns. In the end, I think it came together, and I hope you all enjoy it. I love being a part of so many people’s Christmases and hearing about your rituals for reading it each night makes me really happy. Love to all, and calm, sparkly brightness to everyone you call your own xx
> 
> I would like to thank my two favourite girls: Marie for her loving, bloody-minded encouragement and Nibs for inspiring me to be as happy and creative as I can.
> 
> This story is for llap115. I promised you a story and here it is. There wouldn’t be an advent fic this year without your generosity and Laika helps me to live my best life every day. Thank you <3

**If the Fates Allow**  


_Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light._  


**First of December – an unmade bed**  
  
  
  
When Harry is jolted awake by his alarm clock, the first thing that strikes him is that he can’t feel his legs. Equally worryingly, he appears to have gone blind. Seized with barely-conscious panic, he sits bolt upright and swears loudly when the heavy book that had been covering his face bounces off his bare chest and startles the large black object draped over his thighs, which lets out a yelp and scrambles across the bed.  
  
No longer encumbered by seventy pounds of sleeping Labrador, Harry forces his numb legs to move, flopping back against his pillows and gritting his teeth against the prickly rush of blood to his extremities.  
  
“And that’s why you’re supposed to keep to your own side of the bed, Murdoch,” he sighs.  
  
The dog fixes him with mournful dark eyes and opens his mouth in an impressive silent yawn.  
  
“There’s no need for that,” Harry says, yanking off his glasses and rubbing at the sore spots on the bridge of his nose caused by the frames digging into his face all night, forced harder into his flesh by Hermione’s copy of  _‘Happiness Starts Here’_  that had, apparently, fascinated him to sleep.  
  
Murdoch lays his head against the crumpled duvet and lets out a dramatic huff. Harry smiles in spite of his irritation and scratches the dog’s silky head. Murdoch, or ‘Murder Face’, according to the tag on his collar when Harry had rescued him from an illegal potion ring several years ago, is a creature of simple pleasures. His chief delights in life are sleeping, bouncing up and down, and eating everything in sight, and as such, he is a perfect example of his breed. He is also so incredibly needy that Harry has long since abandoned the idea of leaving him at home, and now takes the idiot with him everywhere he goes.  
  
“You want to go to work?” he asks, and the dog stares up at him calmly. Harry sighs. “No, me neither.”  
  
He digs his nails into his palms until the flesh stings and then hauls himself out of bed.  
  
_Don’t be ungrateful. People would kill for a job like yours. Get on with it._  
  
In the shower, he manages to drop his bottle of shower gel four times, finally cracking the plastic and sending bright green, mint-scented liquid pooling around his feet. He sighs and scrubs himself with some stuff he bought by accident several months ago, yelping as he turns the knob the wrong way and blasts himself with icy cold water. Shivering and smelling like an old lady’s knicker drawer, he dries himself and heads back to the bedroom, where his hair drips water slowly down his back and he realises that his only clean set of robes are the ones he once tried to tailor himself and now make him look as though he’s wearing one of those ‘Sexy Auror’ costumes he’s seen in the shops at Halloween.  
  
“No,” he mumbles, struggling into them anyway and grimacing at his reflection in the mirror.  
  
Everything is far too tight and he looks ridiculous, but the only other option seems to be attempting to fix them himself, and despite what his friends might say, he does sometimes know how to stop when he is ahead. Besides, he has no current cases and might just be able to get through the day without anyone really noticing that he looks like a knob. It’s possible.  
  
In the kitchen, he looks for bread to make toast and comes up empty-handed, deciding to settle for tea and wishing he hadn’t when Murdoch leaps around his feet and causes him to spill most of the hot liquid on his crotch.  
  
“Fucking hell, Murdo, fuck!” he hisses, grabbing his wand and casting hurried spells to lift away the hot tea and soothe his scalded skin.  
  
Feeling sore and irritated despite his best efforts, Harry abandons his cup and sighs as the dog sits heavily on the tiles and looks up at him, tail beating a joyful rhythm.  
  
“You’re sorry?”  
  
Murdoch sneezes and then seizes one corner of Harry’s ridiculous robes in his teeth.  
  
“Well, alright then.”  
  
Harry rubs at his damp hair and glances at the clock. Just enough time to walk through the park and make it to the office on time. That is, if he can find his shoes in the next two minutes. For reasons Harry no longer tries to understand, Murdoch likes to carry shoes—his, Ron’s, Rose’s, he’s not picky—around the house and then hide them in inexplicable places.  
  
“One of these days, I’m going to put all the shoes in one room and  _lock the door_ ,” he tells Murdoch, who seems delighted with this idea and follows Harry on his hunt immediately.  
  
By the time Harry finds his second shoe under the bed, he is sweating slightly in his too-tight robes and rubbing his head after banging it on the underside of the coffee table. Murdoch barks happily and smooshes him against the window frame as he thunders by, causing pain to bloom in Harry’s shoulder and the little bubble of irritation that has been this morning to burst messily.  
  
“Fuck this,” he mumbles to no one in particular. “Fuck it.”  
  
Still holding onto his shoes, he stares at his bed. The rumpled sheet and balled up duvet have never looked so inviting. He hurts all over, he smells like Ron’s Aunt Mildred and he really, really doesn’t want to leave the house in these robes. As though sensing his indecision, Murdoch bounds onto the bed and curls into a glossy black ball of contentment. Within seconds, Harry has joined him, dropping the shoes to the floor and crawling onto the mattress fully clothed. Attempting to ignore the more sensible voices in his head, he cocoons himself in the quilt and closes his eyes.  
  
Just for a minute.  
  
Just for a minute, he’ll stay safe and warm and maybe when he opens his eyes it will be light outside and there will be an owl outside from sodding Seddon telling him to work from home today.  
  
Harry snorts. At his feet, Murdoch reflects the sound back to him.  
  
It’s his own fault, of course. It’s not as though he doesn’t know that. He had wanted to be an Auror so badly, and after five years training and almost a decade in the job, no one can deny that he made his dream come true. The trouble is, the reality isn’t exactly what he had imagined. He had thought that catching dark wizards would be exciting, maybe even fun, but so far, he has found those dark wizards to be oddly… disappointing.  
  
He doesn’t want another Voldemort, that much is certain, but after years of tracking down money-grubbing idiots, he almost feels a sort of respect for the monster. He was evil, that’s for sure, but he’d had a plan. He’d believed in something. He was clever. Harry can’t say the same for the jokers who tried to use wasting magic on goblins to rob Gringotts, or the man who had mastered the killing curse in order to steal from wealthy Muggles, or any number of similarly greedy fuckers who have come across Harry’s desk and ended up at the end of his wand over the years.  
  
He could have had senior status by now, had his own team like Ron, his own swanky office and a secretary to manage his affairs. He could have done all sorts of things, but instead, at thirty-four years old, he is an experienced but run-of-the-mill member of the Auror department. He sits there every day, drinking tea and working steadily but without passion, and has politely refused any and all attempts by his friends to persuade him to take the next step.  
  
“If you have to sabotage yourself, you should at least do it in an enjoyable way,” Hermione says, and Ron always agrees.  
  
“Yeah, just quit and start a llama farm. Send Seddon a Howler with your two weeks’ notice.”  
  
He says this a lot. Granted, sometimes it’s not a llama farm but an archaeological dig or a naked maid service, and sometimes he suggests that Seddon receive the news via skywriting, but the message is always clear.  
  
“Easier said than done,” Harry mutters, eyes still tightly closed.  
  
Murdoch pushes his cold nose into Harry’s hand and snuffles. It helps a little bit.  
  
He loves his friends more than anything, but he doesn’t know how to explain the pressure he feels to be successful. Expectations have been frighteningly high for him since… well, since he was a year old, and they haven’t ever let up. After the war and his training and everything that went with it, he couldn’t  _not_  be an Auror, and as long as he continues to be one—even a not very good one—he’s not letting anyone down.  
  
Of course, it’s quite possible that he’s still managing to let himself down, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. He has a good job, good friends, a good dog. He’s okay.  
  
He takes a long, calming breath, picturing the four walls that keep everything together. The desks, the fireplace that makes strange whistling sounds when he’s trying to concentrate, and the man with whom he shares it all. Yes, there is one thing that keeps him going back to that stuffy little office day after day, and he wishes he could say that it was his job.  
  
In the distance, a car horn blares and Harry opens his eyes. The dark sky has faded to a soft blue, he is holding onto Murdoch’s ear a little too tightly, and he is almost definitely going to be late. Heart speeding, he apologises to Murdoch, both for the ear grabbing and the fact that he’s about to be shoved into the Floo Network, and drags them both downstairs, still hopping and trying to tie his shoe as they lurch into the flames.  
  
They race through the corridors, Harry swearing under his breath and Murdoch bounding with ears flapping, and make it into the office with a minute to spare. He leans on the closed door, breathing hard and holding onto Murdoch’s lead.  
  
“Decided to leave the park outside today, did you?” Draco says without looking up, and Harry’s bleak mood lifts almost through the ceiling, tugging the corners of his mouth with it.  
  
It’s not  _‘great to see you’_  or even  _‘hi’_ , it’s  _‘decided to leave the park outside today, did you?_ ’ but he’s so hopelessly in love with his office mate that it’s enough, and god, he hates himself.  
  
“We didn’t have time for a walk this morning,” he says, watching idly as Murdoch tugs the lead from his hand and rushes Draco’s desk.  
  
“Don’t even think about it,” Draco says, holding a roll of parchment away from Murdoch and patting him on the head. “You just missed Seddon.”  
  
“Well, that’s the first good thing that’s happened today. What did she want?”  
  
“Oh, the usual. Looking for infractions. Checking I was here and hadn’t hired a glamoured goblin to sit at my desk, that sort of thing.”  
  
Harry sighs. “You know, I really should…”  
  
“Don’t even think about it,” Draco says, meeting Harry’s eyes at last and causing his stomach to flip over. “Ever since she was made supervisor, she’s been trying to find ways to make my life difficult, you know that. The way I see it, every day I’m still here is another needle in that voodoo doll of her I have in my drawer.”  
  
“Do you really have a voodoo doll?” Harry asks, genuinely curious. With Draco, anything is possible.  
  
Draco almost smiles. “Not yet.”  
  
Amused, Harry sits at his desk and fishes out a treat to persuade Murdoch away from Draco. Within seconds, he is chomping happily by Harry’s feet, all four legs tucked under him in a way that always makes Harry wonder if he grew up with cats. He supposes he’ll never know. Murdoch’s tail beats happily on the rug, and the sound is comforting.  
  
“She believes in the curse, you know. Seddon.”  
  
Harry looks at Draco. “I want to say that she’d believe in anything, but that seems a bit mean.” He pauses, frowning in concentration. Thinking of his boss, with her ‘Call me Nessa!’ and her ‘We’re all friends here, guys!’ and her office full of ‘inspirational’ posters. “No, actually, I don’t mind being mean. I can’t stand her.”  
  
Draco snorts. “You’re so polite with your hatred. Yesterday I heard Maloney saying he’d like to steal her eyeballs.”  
  
Harry shakes his head. “Yeah, but Maloney is… well, he’s very odd.”  
  
“And you’re—” Draco starts, trailing off at Harry’s look and smiling to himself as he continues to write.  
  
Harry pretends to read the first in a pile of memos on his desk and tries to pull his feelings under control. It’s been a long time now, far too long, and he is wrecked. It hadn’t happened straight away—that he could have dealt with—but slowly, pulling him tighter with every day he sits in this office at his desk six feet away from Draco’s, listening to his discontented muttering over requests that make no sense, catching his rare smiles and even rarer compliments and growing, hour by hour, completely insane with need for a man he once thought he would hate forever.  
  
He should have known that Draco the man was nothing like Draco the child, but still the contrast has taken him so violently by surprise that even after sharing an office for five years, Harry has no idea how to deal with the way it makes him feel. The way he kicks off his expensive Italian shoes and pulls his socked feet up onto his chair, sitting cross-legged and bending over his work like some kind of oversized insect. The way he worries his long fingers into his hair, wrapping strands tightly until his knuckles go white, and the way that by the end of the day his neat hair is waving across his forehead and starting to curl around his ears.  
  
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Draco asks, and something about the tone of his voice tells Harry he has had to repeat himself.  
  
Face hot, he searches for his cup before realising that Draco is already holding it. “Thanks,” he manages. “So, er, what was that about the curse?”  
  
“Well, I heard her talking…”  
  
“Why do you always hear things? I never hear anything,” Harry says, frowning.  
  
“Because I am quiet and discreet and nobody ever notices I’m there,” Draco says, inspecting a piece of fluff stuck to his black sock and vanishing it with his wand. “People tend to hear you coming.”  
  
“I don’t know how to take that,” Harry says, feeling prickly in a way that doesn’t really make sense.  
  
“You needn’t be insulted. I just mean that you’re usually talking to yourself.”  
  
“Oh, good,” Harry mutters, just about resisting the urge to drop his head into his folded arms. Instead he just decides that this day can officially go and fuck itself.  
  
“Anyway, she was asking how long it usually takes to kick in,” Draco says, pouring hot water into their cups. “I think she’s disappointed I haven’t gone the way of your last few Auror partners.”  
  
“Maybe it’s because you’re not an Auror,” Harry suggests. “Maybe the curse needs you to be an Auror.”  
  
“Lucky me,” Draco murmurs, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “Just a lowly SAT.”  
  
“Stuff and Things,” Harry says, grinning at Draco and feeling his heart swell.  
  
“Strategic Apparatus Technician,” Draco corrects, pretending offence.  
  
“You’re a man who knows how to locate certain things from time to time,” Harry adds.  
  
“Don’t start with the film thing,” Draco says, and he passes Harry a steaming cup. “It’s taken me the best part of five years to stop Weasley from calling me ‘Q’.”  
  
Harry smiles. “You know, Ron offered to be my partner just before Seddon moved you here. Just before he got his promotion as well. Obviously, I told him, in the nicest possible way, to sling his hook.”  
  
“Because you didn’t want your best friend to have a nervous breakdown, marry a Muggle and leave the wizarding world or… what was the other one?”  
  
“Belmont’s wife had triplets,” Harry says, casting his mind back. “He had to leave so his wife could… you know… sleep. Kashmir lost her wand arm and had to go back to training. Moore had a blow to the head and developed a phobia of the Ministry… let’s just say that being my partner is, at best, a health hazard.”  
  
Draco lifts an eyebrow. “So, you do believe in it, then?”  
  
“Not really, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk. I can grab someone from the pool if I need help, and they won’t be in any danger—if there is any danger—because they aren’t officially my partner,” Harry says, feeling a bit daft but still fairly certain that this thing, whatever it is, probably shouldn’t be messed with.  
  
“Hmm,” Draco says, inspecting his tea. “It works out well for everyone. I don’t have to sit in the SAT office, which, by the way, smelled so strongly of cabbage that I don’t think I’ll ever get it out of my nostrils; you and Murdoch won’t die of loneliness, and Seddon retains the hope that being in here with you will eventually make me lose my mind. Or a limb.”  
  
“I hate her,” Harry mutters, opting to ignore the part about dying of loneliness.  
  
“We all hate her,” Draco says blithely, taking his tea back to his desk and folding himself into his cross-legged position. “You and me and Murdoch. We’re a team.”  
  
Harry stares at him, suddenly aching all over.  
  
“Yeah,” he says quietly, and knocks over his cup, turning his pile of memos into mush. “Oh, good.”  
  
Draco gazes at him, features settling into a frown. “What the actual fuck are you wearing?”


	2. Chapter Two

**Second of December – hot chocolate**  
  
  
  
After a much more civilised start to the day, Harry manages to walk Murdoch through the frozen park and arrive at the Ministry in robes that fit him by five minutes to nine. They turn the last corner before their office just in time to see Draco approaching from the opposite direction, carrying a crate full of mysterious silver items.  
  
“Can you get the—thanks,” he says as Harry lunges for the handle and pulls the door open.  
  
He opens his mouth to ask about the new gadgets but the words die on his lips when Seddon swoops apparently out of nowhere and pins them both with a calculating stare.  
  
“Just getting in, Malfoy?” she asks, and though her tone is bursting with good humour, her eyes are flat and hard like a shark’s.  
  
“No, I’ve just been down to—” Draco starts but Seddon lets out a barrage of laughter that makes Harry scowl and Murdoch prick his ears in alarm.  
  
“Don’t want you cutting it too fine, do we?” she says, tilting her head so violently to one side that her blonde curls bounce up and down. “In the Auror department, we like to be at our desks and ready to work by nine o’clock at the latest. We want to keep those efficiency scores up, don’t we?”  
  
“Quite,” Draco says, keeping his face emotionless.  
  
Furious, Harry darts a glance into the office and is unsurprised to see that Draco’s coat is hanging on its hook and a half-drunk cup of tea is sitting on his desk. He’s probably been in for hours, designing and testing all sorts of brilliant things for the Aurors to use, but Seddon just doesn’t care. She has loathed Draco from the moment she laid eyes on him, and he just lets her get on with it.  
  
“Sorry, Nessa, but Draco isn’t just getting in. I am,” he says, and Draco lets out a sigh that Harry feels rather than hears. “Murdoch wanted a bit of a run in the park this morning.”  
  
Seddon’s eyes snap to his, and for a moment he thinks she is going to tell him to mind his own business, but then she crouches down and turns her sickening smile on Murdoch.  
  
“Hello, Murdie,” she croons, scratching his ears. “Hello, pretty boy.”  
  
Murdoch quite sensibly turns his head away, looking up at Harry as if to say, ‘what is wrong with this person?’ and Seddon inexplicably beams.  
  
“Oh, such a fancy man, only answering to his proper name,” she laughs, getting up and shooting Draco a warning look before wandering off down the corridor.  
  
Harry stares after her, idly wondering how she would feel about his actual ‘proper name’. Either way, Murdoch answers to a wide range of epithets, including Murdie, Murdo, Dustbin, Daft Dog and Draco’s favourite, ‘stop that right this second’. The truth is, he just doesn’t like Seddon, and Harry doesn’t blame him one bit.  
  
He watches her out of sight and then turns to see that Draco has disappeared into the office. He and Murdoch follow, settling into their usual places and relishing the warmth from the blazing fire in the grate.  
  
“Why do you let her do that?” Harry asks. He doesn’t know why he bothers any more, but for some reason, he always does.  
  
“It’s easier,” Draco says simply.  
  
“You should stand up for yourself,” Harry presses, and Draco just looks at him, mouth twisting.  
  
“That’s your way. I’m not saying it’s a bad way, just that it’s not mine. Not any more.”  
  
“I just don’t think you should come here every day and be… abused,” Harry mumbles.  
  
“It’s not that bad,” Draco insists, holding up one of the silver devices and examining it with a little eyeglass. “I don’t have to come here at all, as you well know, but I happen to enjoy this job and I rather think fighting with that ridiculous woman would make it a lot less fun.”  
  
Harry has heard this questionable logic many times before, and he hates it. He could argue—he probably should argue—but he hasn’t even had a cup of tea yet and all the winter air vigour from the park seems to have evaporated and left him feeling flat. He flicks his wand without enthusiasm and the kettle clicks into life. Without much interest, he sifts through the memos on his desk until he opens one that makes him sit up straight.  
  
“This is an actual case,” he says, reading and rereading the text with growing interest.  
  
“Anything exciting?” Draco asks, voice muffled by the whirring screwdriver currently clamped in his teeth.  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry admits. “It’s come from Muggle Relations. Some sort of presence in a café up north. At first they thought ghosts but now they’re wondering if it’s something dark and want us to have a look.”  
  
Draco removes the screwdriver from his mouth and swivels slowly to face Harry, eyeglass still screwed into his face and legs folded up onto his seat. He looks so open, so easy, so much like a mad scientist that Harry’s chest hurts and he forgets every sensible word in his vocabulary.  
  
“What?” he asks after a moment.  
  
Draco fixes him with a very patient expression. “When are you going?”  
  
Harry shakes himself. “Now-ish? Might as well.”  
  
“I’ll come with you if you want,” Draco says, abandoning his tools and putting on his shoes. “We can take the ghost detector just in case, and I can figure out what kind of kit you’re going to need.”  
  
Equal parts thrilled and pained by this suggestion, Harry just nods and watches Draco flitting around the office and packing a variety of shiny objects into a neat leather briefcase. It’s fine, he tells himself firmly. It’s fine because it will be just the two of them and no one will be around to witness how much of an idiot he makes of himself around Draco. On the other hand,  _it will be just the two of them_ , and the idea of such a thing occurring outside of their safe little office is terrifying.  
  
“What about your… those?” he blurts suddenly, indicating the shiny things in their crate.  
  
“They’re experimental. No one even knows I have them.”  
  
“Seddon knows.”  
  
Draco laughs. “If she can even tell me what they are called, I’ll… give up bakewell tarts for a month,” he says, and then looks at his desk with a frown. “Not that one, though.”  
  
Harry looks, and sure enough, a large bakewell is sitting next to the pot containing Draco’s quills. It’s possible that Draco’s love for the almondy little buggers borders on obsession, but for Harry, it’s just another entry on the long list of things about him that make his brain and his heart and his everything hurt. Beside him, Murdoch shakes his head, reminding Harry of the one and only time the dog had dared to steal Draco’s bakewell and received the talking-to of his life.  
  
“Never mind, daft dog,” Harry murmurs, reaching down and patting Murdoch on the flank.  
  
“Did you say a café?” Draco says suddenly, reaching for his coat.  
  
“Abandoned,” Harry says, checking the memo. “Sorry.”  
  
Draco sighs, watching Harry throw off his outer robes and put on his coat, scarf and gloves with visible impatience. “Do you have the coordinates?”  
  
“You know, I usually manage this just fine all on my own,” Harry points out, and then relents. “Yes. I have them. Let’s go.”  
  
They arrive in the small town of Blackwell-in-the-Fold just as a biting wind sweeps through the streets and rips around the little patch of trees into which they have just Apparated. Murdoch leaps from Harry’s arms and barks enthusiastically at the gusts as they pass, calming only when Harry fishes a treat from his pocket and entreats him to sit nicely.  
  
“You know, Hagrid used to do that,” Draco says.  
  
“Keep dog treats in his pocket? I know.” Harry shrugs and smiles. “I imagine he still does.”  
  
“Oh.” Draco frowns. “Do you all do that? I’ve never met anyone else who has a dog.”  
  
Harry grabs onto a nearby tree for balance, fingers slipping against the rough, cold bark. “You’ve only ever known two people who had dogs? Seriously?”  
  
Draco shrugs. “My father thought dogs were undignified.”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to argue and then looks at Murdoch, who is currently lying on his back in the leaves, all four paws cycling in the air and tongue lolling from his mouth.  
  
“Yeah, alright,” he concedes. “But they have lots of good points, too. Come on, I think the place is at the other side of this hill.”  
  
With some effort, the three of them struggle up the hill, fighting the wind with every step. Every time Harry tries to speak, the words are blown straight back down his throat, so he stops trying, instead focusing on placing his feet and attempting to keep his face hidden in his scarf. Despite his best efforts, his nose and ears are completely numb by the time they pitch up outside the café and Draco’s hair has been blown into so many different directions that he has to suppress a giggle, and then the urge to reach out and neaten it for him.  
  
“What?” Draco demands.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
Harry looks up at the shopfront, taking in windows opaque with dust, moth-eaten lace curtains, a wide black and white painted door with swirly bullseyes in the glass. Above it all, a neatly hand-painted panel reads ‘Garrett’s Tea Shop’. A small flat sits over the shop in a similar state of disrepair. Harry stands back and looks up the street, where neat little houses form a terrace as far as he can see. Garrett’s forms the corner of the row, giving way to a small road leading to a collection of shops, a library, and a town square with a stone clock tower. The pavements are empty, and Harry suspects they are rarely packed with people, even when the wind is behaving itself.  
  
“I never feel quite comfortable when a place is this quiet,” Draco says.  
  
Harry turns back to him. “Because the silence is creepy or because it feels like something really horrible is about to turn up?”  
  
“Both,” Draco admits. “Someone’s coming out, get the door open!”  
  
Harry hurries to unlock the door with a whispered spell, but the neglected wood is swollen and stiff, and he is still struggling to force it open when an old woman bustles out of the house next door and calls to them.  
  
“What are you doing?” she asks, practically vibrating with curiosity. “I saw you from the window.”  
  
“We’re property developers,” Harry lies, smiling at her. “Interested in the building.”  
  
“Ooh,” she breathes, stuffing her hands into her apron pocket and displacing a feather duster. “Like on telly?”  
  
“Sort of, yeah,” Harry says, feeling a prickle of warmth when Draco bends to pick up the duster and hand it back to her.  
  
“Wait ‘til I tell my Bob there’s someone looking to buy that old place,” she says. “Thought it would never go, he did.”  
  
“Why do you say that?” Draco asks.  
  
“You’re not from round here, are you, loves?” she says, looking between them with pale blue eyes that almost match the colour of her curls.  
  
“No, we’re from London,” Harry admits.  
  
“London, well now.” She frowns and then nods, brightening. “When you’ve had a look, knock on and I’ll tell you all about it.”  
  
With that, she walks back into her houses and slams the door. Harry and Draco glance at each other.  
  
“It would probably be rude not to,” Draco says slowly.  
  
“Yes. And she might know something important,” Harry agrees, thinking of a nice warm living room and a good story, and almost wishing he didn’t have to bother with traipsing around a freezing cold, haunted café first. “Is she still looking?”  
  
Draco checks and shakes his head. Harry slides his wand out of the end of his sleeve and casts a small but targeted  _Diffindo_ , which sends the door flying open and a cloud of dust billowing into his face. Spluttering, he flaps his arm in front of his face and tries not to breathe in, grateful when Draco casts a fierce charm that clears a path through the worst of the dust and allows them to step inside.  
  
“Lumos,” Harry whispers, holding his wand aloft and turning in a slow circle.  
  
Despite the large windows, the interior of the café is dark and hazy, forcing Harry to move slowly, taking careful steps with Murdoch at his side. Behind him, Draco is setting up his ghost detector, but Harry is already pretty certain that there are no ghosts here.  
  
But there is something.  
  
Every step sends a chill down his spine and the scent that hangs heavily in the air is familiar and foreign all at once, but almost certainly organic. Something or someone is living here, and it’s his job to figure out why.  
  
Carefully, he makes his way through the dining room, surprised to see several little round tables with dusty white cloths, surrounded by wooden chairs and each topped with a number on a little plastic triangle. Everything is damp and filthy with disuse, but otherwise perfect, as though someone has set up ready for afternoon tea and then run away without looking back.  
  
“This is weird,” he says, voice seeming to disappear into the darkness.  
  
Draco appears at his side, green light from his detector flickering wildly. “Abandoned, like you said,” he sighs. “No bakewell tarts for me.”  
  
“If you find any, I wouldn’t recommend eating them,” Harry says, training his wandlight on the empty glass case beside the till. “How long do you think it’s been like this?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Draco says, scanning another section of the room and then squinting at his detector. “What I can tell you is this – there are no ghosts in here.”  
  
Unsurprised, Harry allows Murdoch to tug him into the kitchen. It’s the same story here as in the dining room; there is mould climbing up the walls and there are cobwebs all over everything, but the counters are stocked with trays, chopping boards, and knives in blocks. Underneath the decay, everything is neat and orderly, and the whole thing is very strange.  
  
The flat upstairs is completely empty. Draco waves his detector around for several minutes but finds nothing. The light here is a little better, but every room seems full of shadows, and Harry has the strangest feeling that he is being watched. Murdoch takes one look at the master bedroom and refuses to enter, forcing Harry to loop his lead around the door handle and hope for the best. When the heavy, musty atmosphere becomes too much for all of them, they lock up the café and stand on the pavement, gulping at the fresh air and letting the wind batter them from side to side.  
  
To nobody’s surprise, the door of number three flies open within seconds and the old woman is waving her hand to usher them inside.  
  
“Come on, you’ll catch your death out there,” she calls, expression daring them to disobey.  
  
“I might,” Harry mumbles to himself. “I might catch my death.”  
  
“Better not risk it,” Draco agrees.  
  
“Aren’t you handsome?” the lady says, catching Murdoch when he slips his lead and barrels towards her. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Murdoch,” Harry says, just as Draco whispers, “Murder Face.”  
  
“Ooh, an Irish name,” she says, poking them into the living room ahead of her. “My husband’s Irish. Are you Irish?”  
  
“No,” Harry says distractedly, lost in the wall of heat that engulfs him the moment he steps into the room, the all-pervading scent of freesias and the biggest collection of pottery animals he has ever seen.  
  
“Well, sit down,” she says, fussing Murdoch and directing him to settle into front of the gas fire. “I’m Gladys and this is my husband, Bob,” she adds, indicating a white-haired man sitting in the armchair nearest the television. “These are property developers, love—real ones.”  
  
Bob merely nods and lifts a hand in greeting. Harry suspects he doesn’t have much call for words, living with Gladys. He nods back and jumps slightly as Draco’s fingers wrap around his wrist and pull him down into a chair.  
  
“I thought she was going to push you if you waited any longer,” he says quietly, and Harry wishes he would let go.  
  
“I’m down,” he promises, and Draco releases him without a word.  
  
Gladys chats away to them from the kitchen without seeming to pause for breath, finally returning with two large mugs and a plate of cakes.  
  
“Hot chocolate,” she announces, passing them each a steaming mug. “Tea’s a wonderful thing but it won’t do on a day like this. Will it, Bob?”  
  
“No,” Bob says, apparently content to gaze at his morning talk show and not get involved.  
  
“Thank you,” Harry says, relishing the heat on his cold hands. “So, have you lived here a long time?”  
  
Gladys takes a mince pie from the plate, at which point Draco appears to notice the presence of a bakewell tart. Harry feels his little intake of breath and pulls tight with longing.  
  
“In this house, fifty years,” Gladys says. She glances at Draco. “Made those yesterday, love. Been in Blackwell all my life.”  
  
“This is wonderful,” Draco sighs, and Harry doesn’t have to look at him to know that he is consuming the tart so neatly that not a single crumb will be wasted. He always does.  
  
“Do you know anything about next door, then?” Harry asks, reminding himself as he does that this is just one of many reasons he doesn’t usually take Draco on his missions. Apart from anything else, he is a massive fucking distraction.  
  
“Well, when I was a little girl it was a general store,” Gladys says. “That closed when Mr Dawson died—ninety-three, he was. Then a family just lived in it for a few years, then a gentleman bought it and tried to turn it into a café. That’s when the odd stuff started to happen.”  
  
“What sort of odd stuff?” Harry asks, wishing he’d thought to bring his notebook.  
  
“Funny noises in the night. Things going missing. They started work on the downstairs but never got to the flat. It looked like it was nearly ready to open, he did a good job of it, you know. And then one day… nothing.” Gladys shrugs. “The work stopped but the café never opened. Nobody’s touched it since.”  
  
“And when was that?” Harry asks, taking a sip of his hot chocolate and completely forgetting his next question. “This is incredible!”  
  
“Do you think so?”  
  
“Yes, it’s… ” Harry hesitates, trying to put into words the rich, cocoa taste of the liquid that slides down his throat and warms his chest and belly, the prickle of sweetness and the unexpected but blissful flare of heat. “It’s brilliant. The best I’ve had.”  
  
Gladys beams and her eyes crinkle with pleasure. “Secret recipe.”  
  
“It really is wonderful,” Draco says. “And when did this man leave? The one who tried to open the café?”  
  
“Ooh, when was it, Bob?” she asks, and then continues without waiting for a response. “I know, it was the election year, that boring man with the glasses, let’s think… nineteen ninety-two.”  
  
“Twenty-two years?” Draco says, surprised. “Has no one been inside?”  
  
“Every now and then someone comes and has a look at it,” Gladys says. “They always come out looking a bit funny. If you ask me, that place doesn’t want anyone in it.”  
  
“Do you think it’s haunted?” Harry asks cautiously.  
  
Gladys laughs. “No, love, it’s just an empty building. I don’t believe in things like that. It won’t do at my age.”  
  
“So, you don’t hear… strange noises?”  
  
“All the time, but like I said, it’s just an old house. Old houses make funny noises. I’ll tell you what, though,” Gladys says, leaning forward and fixing Harry with a conspiratorial eye. “There’s a lot of folk do believe in spooky things like that.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Garrett’s is famous round here, you know. If you want to have a chat to some of them before you buy the place, you should head up to the Breakfast Barrel first thing tomorrow morning. It’s just round the corner; everyone goes there for their fry-ups and whatnot.”  
  
“They’ve all got a theory,” Bob says, startling Harry with a full sentence.  
  
“That’s right,” Gladys says. “And if you decide to buy it, we’ll be happy to be your neighbours. Everyone’s very open-minded around here, you know.”  
  
Harry glances at Draco. He can’t help it. Draco rather helpfully just stares at him and doesn’t offer a single word of assistance. Harry sighs and pastes on a smile that makes him feel wobbly.  
  
“We’re not… and, I mean, we wouldn’t be buying it for…”  
  
Gladys winks at him. “It takes all sorts to make a world, love. Do you want another hot chocolate?”  
  
Harry gazes into his empty cup, suddenly feeling quite sick. “No, thanks. We’d better go.”  
  
He gets to his feet and persuades a sleepy Murdoch away from the fire and back onto his lead. Gladys smiles easily at them and waves them off from the front door, hanging onto the handle and watching them walk back over the hill, through the wind and over to the trees.  
  
“Do your interviews always go like that?” Draco asks, just before they Disapparate.  
  
He smells of icing and chocolate and sticky fake cherries and Harry wants nothing more than to kiss him and get it over with. Instead, he just shifts Murdoch in his arms and closes his eyes.  
  
“No, Draco.”


	3. Chapter Three

**Third of December – a steamy café window**  
  
  
  
Harry pulls himself up the last few yards of the hill and pauses for a moment, yawning and burying his hands into his coat pockets. Below him, Blackwell-in-the-Fold lies sleeping, as all sensible small northern towns should be at seven o’clock on a December morning, lit only by orange street lamps and the determined glow of his destination. If he sniffs hard enough, he can almost smell the bacon and fresh bread, but he quickly stops when the bitter cold begins to make his nostrils sting.  
  
He feels oddly alone without Murdoch, but suspects that even mostly well-behaved dogs will not be welcome in a place serving food. Instead, the daft dog has been left sulking and hiding in the quilt, while Harry faces the locals of Blackwell by himself. As he continues down the hill, he can’t quite help wondering what Draco is up to at this hour. He seems to be both a night-time and morning person all at once, making Harry wonder if he ever sleeps and quickly making him decide to  _stop that at once_  before the mission is sidetracked by thoughts of Draco in pyjamas. And not in them.  
  
Shivering despite his heavy coat, jeans and favourite red jumper, Harry skids off the grass and onto the pavement that leads into the little shopping area. In the darkness, the Breakfast Barrel shines like a beacon, and he hurries towards it. He can hear the chatter of voices before he even reaches for the door handle, but the windows are completely obscured by steam and condensation, leaving the interior a mystery.  
  
When he opens the door, a little bell clangs above his head, and almost every eye in the place turns to regard him. He smiles nervously and most of them turn back to their breakfasts, but the man behind the counter smiles back.  
  
“You’ll be the property developer, then,” he says, voice so soft it barely reaches Harry above the rumble of conversation.  
  
Surprised, he approaches the counter, taking a moment to appreciate the warmth, the mingled scents of toast and salty meats and the fact that the entire place is clad in faded orange pine, the like of which probably hasn’t been seen in London in twenty years. He wonders if this man is responsible for hanging red checked curtains at every window, or for the sign that reads ‘you don’t have to be mad to eat here, but it helps’.  
  
In the end all he says is, “News travels fast.”  
  
The man nods. “Gladys and my mum go way back. We never miss out on any of the gossip.”  
  
“Good to know,” Harry says, amused. “That might work to my advantage. I was actually hoping to hear some of the local legends about Garrett’s.”  
  
“There’s plenty of them, love,” says a woman with kind eyes and a no-nonsense bob. She gets up from a nearby table and ducks behind the counter. “Have you not brought your young man today?”  
  
Harry’s stomach tightens. “He’s not actually—”  
  
“Gladys says he was well fit,” interrupts a girl in a school uniform, turning to look at Harry with a triangle of toast in her hand. “She didn’t say well fit.”  
  
“Handsome,” booms someone else, and Harry twists to look at a bearded young man wearing a high-vis construction jacket. “A handsome man and a lovely dog. She said you were… bugger, I can’t remember.” Shrugging, he continues to dissect his fried egg.  
  
“She said you had eyes like the sea,” the woman behind the counter says helpfully. She frowns and leans closer to him. “I’d say they were more grassy, but each to their own.”  
  
Bewildered, Harry opens his mouth to say something—anything—but the girl with the toast beats him to it.  
  
“Are you really going to buy Garrett’s? It’s haunted, you know.”  
  
“No, it isn’t, Serena,” the man at the counter says. “It’s spirits, trapped in the walls.”  
  
Serena stares at him in the way only a teenage girl can. “Yeah. Haunted.”  
  
“My mum used to say it was bad fairies, playing tricks on us because we weren’t magic,” adds a teenage boy in a different school uniform, slinging his huge backpack to the floor and then reddening when Serena tries to hide a giggle in her toast. “My mum used to say,” he repeats sheepishly. “Can I have a sausage bap, Mike?”  
  
“Can I have a sausage bap, Mike,  _please_?” the man corrects, already reaching for the tongs.  
  
“Yeah, sorry. Craig, I’ve got that book you lent me. Finished it,” the boy says, pulling a thick book from his bag and pelting it across the room at the construction worker, who catches it inches from his breakfast.  
  
“Anything good?” Harry asks, deciding to just go with it and just hoping someone will ask him what he wants to eat before the sun comes up.  
  
“Dostoyevsky,” the boy says, taking his sandwich. “Vy govorite po-russki?”  
  
“Don’t show off, Brendan,” Serena sighs. “Do you speak Russian, Mr Property Developer Man?”  
  
“Er, no,” Harry says, suddenly feeling rather inadequate. “And Harry is fine.”  
  
“Ooh, like Prince Harry,” croaks a tiny old woman, rising from her seat behind an enormous spider plant. “I bet you’d like to know what really happened in that tea room.”  
  
“I really would,” Harry says, pulling out his notebook and pencil and turning to the counter. “Please may I have a coffee and some bacon and toast?”  
  
“You only had to ask,” Mike says mildly, and there’s something in his expression that tells Harry his behaviour is making him stick out like a Quaffle at a tea party.  
  
He doesn’t suppose it can be helped.  
  
Once in possession of his breakfast, he sits down opposite the old lady to hear her story. Within seconds, the others are craning their necks to hear, and by the time Harry is halfway through his toast and bacon, several have inched closer in their chairs and are attempting to interject.  
  
“That’s not how it starts,” Craig says, licking ketchup off an enormous thumb. “It’s meant to be that she’s his second wife, and when—”  
  
“I heard his third,” Mike puts in. “Third time unlucky and all that.”  
  
“Third time lucky, isn’t it?” Serena says, frowning.  
  
“Not for her,” Brendan says darkly.  
  
“Okay, hang on,” Harry says, quickly realising that if he doesn’t take control of the situation, no one will. “Let’s have… I’m so sorry, I didn’t ask your name?”  
  
“Marcia,” the old woman rasps.  
  
“Let’s have Marcia’s version of the story and then I can hear everyone else’s.” Harry waves his notebook. “I’m writing it all down, I promise.”  
  
“Right,” Marcia says, lacing her wrinkled fingers together. “So, nobody had lived in the house for a very long time. Nobody had opened the shop, not since Mr Dawson died.”  
  
Harry smiles to himself and begins to write.  
  
**~*~**  
  
“So then, after the couple move in, the man starts hearing voices,” Harry says, pacing the office with mug of tea in hand. “At first, they’re saying things like ‘look under the sink to find the watch you lost’, stuff like that. And every time, the predictions come true.”  
  
Draco leans on his desk on his forearms and regards him steadily. “Until they don’t?”  
  
“Until they turn weird,” Harry says, and then grins. “Or ‘queer’, as Marcia put it. I don’t think the kids knew that word ever had another meaning—you should have seen their faces.”  
  
“You should have taken me with you, then,” Draco says, and Harry can’t quite decide if his irritation is real or for show. He is so impossible to read sometimes that all Harry wants to do is spell his chair out from under him and watch him flail on the floor, just for a moment. But he won’t, any more than he will ever tell Draco how he feels about him, because he is a realist, and nothing good can come of any of it.  
  
He frowns, realising he has stopped in the middle of the rug and Murdoch is looking at him as though he’s lost his marbles.  
  
“I didn’t want to drag you out of bed at six in the morning,” he says at last, and continues before Draco has a chance to respond. “So, anyway, his wife gets pregnant and for a while, the voices stop. They’re happy. They’re doing up the tea shop. But then, just as the wife goes into labour, the voices come back. They tell him there’s something wrong with the baby—it’s evil and he needs to get it out, or it will kill them both and burn the house to the ground. At least, that’s what he tells the midwife when she comes to help with the birth.”  
  
Draco stares at him, eyebrows raised. “Did he kill the baby?”  
  
“No one knows,” Harry says, starting to enjoy himself. “He was arrested, but all they ever found was a bathtub full of blood. No mother, no baby. When they asked him about his wife and child he just smiled and said, ‘they’ll always be with me’.”  
  
“Good grief,” Draco says. “Is any of that true?”  
  
Harry grins. “I doubt it, but it’s a great story.”  
  
“You’re a little macabre, aren’t you?” Draco says, twisting his fingers into his hair and staring at Harry as though he’s never seen him before. “Such an innocent face, but inside, a heart of darkness.”  
  
“Is the drama necessary?” Harry asks, still grinning.  
  
“Absolutely. So how are you going to find out if any of the stories are true?”  
  
“Well, we didn’t find any ghosts so I think we can cross off all the spirits-in-the-walls theories,” Harry says, sitting at his desk. “As for hallucinating cannibals, I’m thinking a trip to the library.”  
  
“A Muggle library?” Draco asks, clearly intrigued.  
  
“Yeah. There’s one in the town square. I thought we could look up some old newspapers and see what they have to say,” Harry explains. “If anything bizarre ever really happened there, someone will have written about it.”  
  
“‘We’ now, is it?” Draco says, and Harry flushes. He doesn’t remember saying ‘we’ but apparently he’s more of an idiot than he thought and now he’s probably going to have to go with it.  
  
“You can come if you want to,” he says, even though his insides are squirming and he can smell Draco’s sharp, citrus scent even though he is all the way across the room and there’s no way on earth he’s going to look up from his memos.  
  
“Excellent,” Draco says, and Harry is both surprised and relieved to see that he is standing over him and placing an almost full cup of tea on his desk.  
  
Praying that his face isn’t burning the way he thinks it is, he looks up slowly.  
  
“Er… I just made one, thanks. In fact, I’m pretty sure I just made that one.”  
  
Draco gazes down at him. “It’s not for you to drink. It’s for you to empty and make me a new one.”  
  
Harry frowns. “What’s wrong with that one?”  
  
“It’s had a dog’s tongue in it.”  
  
“Oh.” Harry looks around for Murdoch, finding him sitting next to Draco’s chair and beating his tail against the rug happily. “Seriously, Murdo?”  
  
“No wonder that creature is always confused,” Draco says. “His name is Murder Face.”  
  
“Yes,” Harry concedes, “but that’s a ridiculous name.”  
  
“So is Draco, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”  
  
Harry gazes up at him for longer than he should. “It suits you, though,” he says at last, and Draco gives him a look. It’s simultaneously withering and wry and knowing, and god, Harry wishes he would look away. Look at something else, anything else, look at the window or the ceiling or Murdoch, who is now rubbing his face on the rug and grunting to himself.  
  
“Are you seeing Weasley tonight?” Draco says abruptly, walking away and grabbing a report from his desk. “Tell him I need this completed or I won’t be able to equip his team in time for their next mission.”  
  
“I’ll see him tomorrow,” Harry says, accepting the report, but Draco doesn’t seem to have heard him.  
  
He’s already at the kettle, making himself another cup of tea. Harry watches him in silence for a moment, then flips open his notebook and starts to read.

 


	4. Chapter Four

**Fourth of December – colourful hair**  
  
  
  
Harry casts his well-worn series of detection charms for the fourth time, and, for the fourth time, the interior of Garrett’s tea shop lights up like a Christmas tree. As he waits, for the fourth time, for the blazing colours to fade and hopefully—this time—show him a positive result of some kind, he hears the snap of Murdoch’s jaws and sighs, quite possibly for the fourth time.  
  
“Draco, what are you giving him?” he asks, eyes trained on the softening colours.  
  
“Bacon,” Draco says distractedly, and then, “Good boy.”  
  
“Is he being a good boy?”  
  
“All dogs are good boys,” Draco says. “Or girls. Well, most of them are. The point is, I’m attempting to condition him to behave himself for when we leave him outside the library.”  
  
When the lights disappear completely and leave the little shop in near darkness, Harry tucks his wand into his coat and turns to regard them. Draco is kneeling on the dusty floor in his immaculate wool coat and Murdoch is sitting in front of him, quivering with the effort of not snapping up the little piece of bacon that is perching on his nose.  
  
Impressed, Harry smiles. “So, this is for science?”  
  
Draco glances at him, eyes bright in the gloom. “For science. And a little bit for fun,” he admits, and then nods to Murdoch, who dispatches the treat in a fraction of a second.  
  
“Well, my experiment was a great big failure,” Harry says, peering out at the lashing rain and grimacing. “Nothing I tried brought up any traces of dark magic, and I went right back to the turn of the twentieth century just in case.”  
  
“Anyone would think you were disappointed,” Draco says to Murdoch, fishing out another bit of bacon and making Harry wonder if he ate any of his breakfast sandwich at all.  
  
“No dark magic is good, but no dark magic doesn’t mean no dark wizard, and it certainly doesn’t mean no ridiculous dark force that I haven’t come across before,” Harry says. “Besides, I don’t think it really matters what it is any more. I’m curious.”  
  
Draco gets to his feet and brushes off his clothes. “Seddon will be thrilled.”  
  
“Good. She needs some excitement in her life,” Harry says carelessly. “It’s not as though she desperately needs either of us on another case right now.”  
  
“I’m ahead of schedule,” Draco says, one eyebrow flickering. “As far as she knows I’m out doing research this morning.”  
  
Harry shrugs, opening the door and letting in a blast of freezing rain. “It’s not even a lie.”  
  
Draco watches the downpour for a second and then applies a neat coat of  _Impervious_  to his clothes and hair. “The best ones never are.”  
  
By the time they reach the library, Harry and Murdoch are drenched. It occurs to Harry that he could have followed Draco’s example and remained completely dry, but he has his pride. It’s ridiculous and it lands him in all sorts of messes, but he has it, and that has to count for something.  
  
Spotting a large concrete overhang beside a set of railings, Harry ties up Murdoch and glances around. The rain has swept the streets of Blackwell clean and he feels confident in applying a discreet drying charm to the sodden black fur before he leaves Murdoch staring after him in confusion from his little shelter.  
  
“I hope he doesn’t think I’m abandoning him,” Harry says.  
  
“That’s why I have more bacon,” Draco says, looking rather pleased with himself. “In theory, he’ll think, ‘going away and coming back means I get a treat – awesome!’”  
  
Harry glances at him. “That’s… really strange coming out of your mouth.”  
  
Draco snorts and grabs the door handle. “That’s because it’s not me. It’s him. I think he’s the sort of dog that would say ‘awesome’.”  
  
Harry smiles, something unhelpful tugging at his heart. “You should get a dog.”  
  
Draco gives him a rather strange look. “Why? I’ve already got one.”  
  
At that, he stalks into the library, leaving Harry frozen to the spot. After a moment, Draco pulls the door open again and stares at him.  
  
“Are you coming or not?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, shaking himself and stepping inside.  
  
The Blackwell-in-the-Fold Community Library is small and neat, rows of shelves crouching under a low ceiling covered in strip lighting and polystyrene tiles. It reminds Harry strongly of the library in Little Whinging, which has since been pulled down and replaced with a block of apartments, and he would be willing to bet all the coins in his pocket that very little in this building has changed since the nineteen sixties. Even the smell makes him feel nostalgic, that distinctive blend of paper, ink, glue and static, along with something sweet that always makes him crave cheap chocolate.  
  
“Where should we start?” Draco whispers, making him shiver. “There’s a local history section.”  
  
“We can try that, but I have another idea,” Harry says, and the sound of his normal speaking voice makes Draco stiffen.  
  
“Shh,” he whispers, and then quite unexpectedly ducks behind a nearby shelf.  
  
Baffled, Harry looks around to see a tall man with a spectacular, rainbow-coloured Mohican approaching with long, determined strides. His hair stands proudly a good six inches from his head, jolting with every step and making him look at least seven feet tall. Just as Harry glances around to see if Draco has come out of hiding, the man smiles at him and calls out.  
  
“You look lost… and soaking wet, my god,” he declares, lyrical Scouse accent startling Harry into laughter.  
  
“Yeah… didn’t think to bring an umbrella. Obviously, I’m an idiot.”  
  
“Not at all, just not local,” the man says with a sigh. “Rain is sort of the default setting around here. And wind. It’s a geographical thing, apparently. Still, we get proper snow as well.”  
  
Harry smiles. “I’ll look forward to that. We might be around for a little while—I’m hoping to do some research on Garrett’s.”  
  
The man nods in such a way that his spiked hair bobs like a crest on a particularly colourful peacock.  
  
“You’re the property developer. For what it’s worth,” he says conspiratorially, “I don’t think it’s haunted at all. I think all those legends came from someone who didn’t want another café in town, if you know what I mean.”  
  
“The Breakfast Barrel?” Harry says, surprised.  
  
The man taps his nose with a silver painted finger and then laughs. “I’m just messing with you. I don’t know what’s wrong with that place.”  
  
Relieved, Harry smiles. “Do you have any archives of the local newspaper?”  
  
“Almost a hundred years of the Blackwell Bugle,” the man says proudly. “It’s all on microfiche—do you need a hand?”  
  
“That would be great. I’m Harry, by the way.”  
  
“I know,” the man says, leading him over to a large machine in the corner. “You can call me Joe, because that’s my name.”  
  
Amused, Harry follows him and collects several boxes of film from an enormous set of drawers. After a brief tutorial, he is confident enough to let Joe head back to the front desk, and seconds later, Draco pulls up the chair beside him.  
  
“What was that about?” Harry asks, moving the film around until the front page of the newspaper is clear on the screen.  
  
“Nothing,” Draco whispers. “You should lower your voice.”  
  
Harry turns to him and the anxious look on his face makes his heart twist. “Draco, this isn’t school. Things have changed. You can talk in libraries now and the people who work in them are usually nice.”  
  
“It could be a trap,” Draco whispers, looking around. “That man could come back and throw us out, or…”  
  
“Or what? Are you worried you’re going to lose housepoints?”  
  
“Shut up,” Draco mumbles. “I don’t think it’s right, him being so friendly. Madam Pince was never like that.”  
  
“That, I will give you,” Harry says, scrolling through the pages in front of him. “Madam Pince was terrifying. But… have you ever met another librarian that scary?”  
  
“No,” Draco says, and then lets out a long breath, seemingly irritated with himself. “I haven’t met any other librarians.”  
  
Harry stares at him. “Ever?”  
  
Draco frowns, resting his elbows on the desk and wrapping a long strand of hair around his fingers.  
  
“No. We had a library at home and… well, let’s say going elsewhere was not encouraged.”  
  
Harry gazes at him for a moment, unsure what to say. In the end, he pushes away his thoughts on Draco’s ridiculous childhood and just sticks out an arm, indicating the shelves and tables.  
  
“Well, here we are—elsewhere. What do you think?”  
  
“I don’t know. Can you smell chocolate?”  
  
Harry grins. “Pass me another box.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
Two hours, a whole stack of microfilms and several Murdoch-reassurance missions later, Harry and Draco wave goodbye to Joe and emerge into the rain with a sheaf of printed pages. Back in the office, having finally dried his clothes and hair, Harry turns slowly in his desk chair and reads through all of the relevant articles in an attempt to piece together an explanation for the goings-on at Garrett’s.  
  
It is quickly clear that despite Marcia’s lurid tale, no such murder has ever taken place, but the legend of the cannibal and his bath full of blood has, over the years, taken on a life of its own.  
  
_‘They say the ghost of the mother, holding her baby, walks around the shop looking for revenge,’ says Karen Miller, 15, of Roseberry Avenue,_  Harry reads, scanning an article about the popularity of the shop as a place to gather on Halloween night.  
  
In another article, he is amused to find a quote from Gladys at number three, who tells the reporter to  _‘stop making a fuss over nothing. It’s just an old house making a few noises’_.  
  
She is, however, in the minority. Most of the town’s residents believe that something strange is going on at Garrett’s, and despite the lack of evidence so far, Harry follows his gut and pulls several decades’ worth of the  _Daily Prophet_  from the archive, searching for anything even vaguely connected to an abandoned teashop in Blackwell-in-the-Fold.  
  
By six o’clock, the sky is dark, he is covered in printing ink, and he has found absolutely nothing.  
  
Irritated, he stretches the kinks out of his back and gazes down at Murdoch, who is resting his head on his knee and peering up at him mournfully.  
  
“Are you hungry?” he asks, and his stomach growls helpfully. “Me too.”  
  
“That’s what happens when you don’t eat lunch,” Draco says without looking up from his work.  
  
“You didn’t eat lunch either,” Harry points out.  
  
“Never mind that. You’d better go if you want to make dinner and get to Weasley’s on time.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m—hang on, how do you always know what I’m doing?” Harry asks, even though he doesn’t mind at all. After all, he doesn’t want Draco to  _know_  that he doesn’t mind.  
  
Draco twists his wand and a small shower of sparks lights the air. “I write it all down in a little book,” he says calmly. “On Fridays, Harry goes to Weasley and Granger’s for dinner, and every second Friday, he cooks the food and takes it with him. I even have a little list of all the dishes he has ever made, and a rating system to record how well they were enjoyed by Weasley, Granger, and the dog.”  
  
Harry stares at him, at his worry-waved hair, his little eyeglass, his folded up posture. Then he looks at the little crinkle at one corner of his mouth and his whole body is flooded with loving him.  
  
“Shut up, Draco,” he mumbles.  
  
“It’s not my fault you’re so predictable,” Draco says, and Harry throws a balled-up piece of parchment across the room in frustration.  
  
When it bounces off the kettle and lands in the wastepaper basket, he decides to collect his things and go while he still can.  
  
Once home, he feeds Murdoch and then fills his kitchen with steam as he puts together a vast lasagne and homemade garlic bread. Friday evening dinner has been hosted at Ron and Hermione’s place ever since the logistics of moving around children became an issue, but the cooking duties are still shared, alternating between Harry and whichever one of his friends is the least exhausted that day. Harry has never been a truly confident cook, but over the years he has begun to enjoy creating hearty, flavourful dishes with fresh ingredients, the kind that leave a person feeling sated and soothed at the same time.  
  
When his lasagne is crisp and bubbling on the top, he wraps it in charms to keep it warm and portable, quickly showers and changes, and Apparates into Ron and Hermione’s kitchen with Murdoch dangling good-naturedly under one arm.  
  
“That smells good, mate,” Ron says, turning and brandishing a corkscrew. “Red alright?”  
  
Harry nods, releasing Murdoch and placing the lasagne tray on the table. “Shall I get plates?”  
  
“Did you make the amazing garlic bread?” Hermione says breathlessly, dashing into the room and sniffing the air. “Harry, it’s been such a day. You are wonderful.”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to reply but quickly finds himself silenced by Hermione’s fierce hug. Smiling, he hugs her back and rests his chin on top of her head. Feeling himself relaxing at last, he looks around at their bright, warm kitchen. When he notices the wheelchair by the door, he frowns.  
  
“Doesn’t she need that to get to bed?” he asks.  
  
Hermione lets him go and reaches for the plates. Ron lets out a sigh that is softened by his smile.  
  
“Yeah, Daddy still has to carry her to bed. She insists.”  
  
“What happens when she gets too big?” Harry asks.  
  
“What are you trying to say?” Ron demands, flexing a freckly arm and pretending offence.  
  
“She’ll be able to walk by then,” Hermione says firmly. “We saw the Healer today. He still says two more years until she can have the treatment. You know, I thought it would be easier as she got older because she’d understand why she couldn’t do things… but now all her friends are getting bikes and skateboards and it’s so hard watching her miss out.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, wishing he could do something, anything at all, to help his friends and his niece, but he knows all too well that all they can do is wait.  
  
“She’s tough,” Ron says. “You should have seen her on Saturday at the park. She dumped herself out on the grass so two of her friends could have a go in the chair. Should have seen them all laughing.”  
  
Harry grins and Hermione directs a small, wobbly smile at the stack of plates in her hands.  
  
“She’s a good girl. And Hugo tied his own shoes today,” she says, brightening. “It was a bit of an unorthodox method, but the shoes stayed on, so I think it’s a win.”  
  
“I’m impressed,” Harry says. “I don’t think Dudley ever learned to tie his own shoes. If he couldn’t have Velcro, Aunt Petunia had to do it for him.”  
  
Hermione shudders. “I am not going to be that kind of parent. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not,” she says, squeezing the plates harder and repeating the words to herself like a mantra.  
  
“Of course not,” Harry says, alarmed. “You’re a brilliant mum. You both are.”  
  
Ron snorts and turns back to the wine bottle. Murdoch dashes up to him and tries to poke his nose into Ron’s jeans pocket.  
  
“I stand by it,” Harry says, and Hermione beams at him.  
  
He knows the last few years haven’t been easy for them, but they are so incredibly resilient. When Rose’s spinal condition confined her to a wheelchair that the old, narrow halls of the local primary school couldn’t accommodate, they had decided to teach her at home until changes could be made, and when Ron, initially selected as teacher due to Hermione’s high salary on the board at St Mungo’s, found himself completely unsuited to the job, she had resigned in a heartbeat so that she could be at home with both children.  
  
They both work as hard as they can to bring everything together, but there is no resentment. There are frayed tempers on both sides, nagging and the occasional cross word, but Harry only has to spend a few moments in their company to know that his best friends love each other completely.  
  
And it’s not as though he’s jealous, but every Friday night, after an evening of food and wine and conversation, he is left feeling just a little bit raw for what he doesn’t have. But he’s glad that they have it, because he loves them and oh, good, now Ron is looking at him as though he’s gone to the strange place.  
  
“Wine, mate?” he tries, holding out a glass.  
  
Harry accepts it with a sheepish smile. “Thanks.”  
  
“So, seeing as you were staring into space… how’s Q?”  
  
Harry and Hermione sit at the table as he covertly gives Ron the finger, and persuades Murdoch to stop chasing his own tail and instead settle on the floor at his feet.  
  
“You know, he really thinks you stopped calling him that,” he says, removing the charms from the food and fully releasing the warm, herby aroma into the air.  
  
“I like to challenge expectations,” Ron says airily. He cuts through the crisp top of the lasagne with a serving spoon and begins to pile pasta, sauce, meat and cheese onto their plates. “Seriously, though, Harry? What’s so brilliant about him anyway? I mean, he makes cool toys and I suppose he’s quite funny… and he dresses really well, but…”  
  
“Ron, do  _you_  want to be Draco’s boyfriend?” Hermione asks, tempering a smile.  
  
“Very funny. He’d be lucky to have me, anyway,” Ron says stoutly, pushing an enormous forkful of lasagne into his mouth.  
  
Hermione gazes at him and sighs. “Yeah. Anyway, Harry, the thing about it is—”  
  
“I thought,” Harry interrupts, “we agreed not to talk about this any more.”  
  
“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Hermione says, frowning at her garlic bread.  
  
“You did,” Ron says, swallowing at last. “But you had had three glasses of Dad’s wine on an empty stomach.”  
  
Hermione looks pensive for a moment and then seems to shake off the memory, instead fixing Harry with a familiar ‘strict but understanding’ expression.  
  
“Harry, it’s not healthy. You need to make a move or move on,” she says.  
  
Ron snorts. “‘Make a move’?”  
  
“You know what I mean,” Hermione says crossly. “Harry, eat your lasagne.”  
  
“Yes, Mum,” he says, taking a bite and abruptly remembering how hungry he is. Several forkfuls later, he looks up at Hermione. “It’s not that easy, you know. I’m… busy.”  
  
“Blaise started two new businesses the year he asked Ginny out, and now they’re getting married,” Hermione says, and Harry wonders if he can get away with kicking her under the table. At his feet, Murdoch lets out a huge sigh. Harry scratches his head.  
  
“We can’t all be Blaise,” he says, deciding to top up Hermione’s wine glass.  
  
“No,” Ron sighs wistfully and bites into his garlic bread. “Shame.”  
  
Hermione gives him a weary look and then turns to Harry. They exchange glances and he nods.  
  
“I’ve got this,” she says. “Ron, if you were Blaise, Ginny would be your—”  
  
“Don’t. Bloody hell, don’t say it,” Ron mumbles, shuddering and setting his fork down completely for several worrying seconds. When he resumes eating, Harry and Hermione turn back to one another, relieved.  
  
“Anyway,” she says, “unrequited love causes stress, anxiety, high blood pressure…”  
  
“… piles, dysentery, the plague…” Harry adds.  
  
“I’m just trying to help,” Hermione says, resting her chin in one hand and sipping her wine. She looks tired, and Harry doesn’t know why he’s surprised. “I suppose the point is, it’s been five years. You work together every day. You’re suffering. Why not just ask and get it over with?”  
  
“Oh, just ask?” Harry repeats, mocking her tone and fighting a smile when she sticks out her tongue. “I don’t even know if he’s gay or straight. It’s alright for you.”  
  
“I hardly think our road to… you know, _this_ , was completely simple,” Hermione says, and Harry has to concede.  
  
“I know. I’m just…”  
  
“He seems friendly enough these days,” Ron says suddenly, and it takes Harry a moment to realise that he is probably speaking because his plate is empty.  
  
“Have some more, I don’t want to take it home with me,” Harry says, and then: “When was the last time you two had a conversation?”  
  
“We had a really good talk the other day.”  
  
“What was it about?” Harry asks, surprised.  
  
“Shoulder-mounted weather cannons for my team. He thinks—”  
  
“A conversation that wasn’t about work.”  
  
“Oh. Well, I don’t know, whenever I come into your office he just says ‘Weasley’ in that way he does and then pretends I’m not there,” Ron says, digging his fork into his second helping. “But no one can be like that all the time, they’d burst.”  
  
Harry laughs. “Well, he’s not.”  
  
“He’s probably different around you,” Hermione says. “You should just tell him. Just do it. You know… I think this has gone to my head already.”  
  
She stares at her wine glass and Ron kisses her cheek, leaving a little smear of sauce behind. She doesn’t appear to notice.  
  
“What should I tell him?” Harry asks, feeling as though he has had this conversation several hundred times before, and perhaps he has. “Tell him that I’ve been completely and utterly in love with him for years? No. Complete and utter humiliation.”  
  
“You’re saying ‘complete and utter’ a lot,” Ron says. “Could be a bad sign.”  
  
“Thanks, mate.”  
  
“When did you last go out with someone?” Ron asks, guarding his food from Murdoch, who seems to have crawled under the table unnoticed. “Could it be… five years ago?”  
  
“No,” Harry says triumphantly. “Two. I went out with that tennis bloke.”  
  
Hermione regards him steadily. “You mean when you won a free tennis lesson in the Christmas raffle and had a pint and some chips in the club bar with the instructor? That doesn’t count.”  
  
“He gave me his phone number,” Harry protests. “Come back here, Murdoch.”  
  
“Did you call him?”  
  
“No,” Harry sighs. “But seriously… how would you feel if we were actually together?”  
  
“Relieved,” Ron and Hermione say as one, and Harry blinks, surprised.  
  
“Right.”  
  
“You know, I can see you doing that,” Hermione says, and for a moment, Harry is confused, until he follows her eyes to see that he is feeding Murdoch bits of bread under the table.  
  
“I didn’t even know I was doing it,” he says, feeling slightly dazed.  
  
“You’re about as subtle as Rose is when she’s trying to give her broccoli to the cat.”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to ask whether or not the cat is interested in dispatching the broccoli but the flames in the kitchen fireplace burn green and Ginny steps out into the kitchen.  
  
“Ooh, what are we having?” she asks, approaching the table and scanning the remains of the meal.  
  
After a moment’s thought, she tears off a piece of garlic bread and tops it with meat and sauce from the lasagne tray. She pulls up the chair next to Harry’s and rubs Murdoch’s ears as she bites into the bread.  
  
“This is brilliant,” she sighs. “Whose is it? Harry’s or Ron’s?”  
  
“Hey,” Hermione protests, and then sags. “No, never mind.”  
  
“I can’t cook, either,” Ginny says, grinning. “Why do you think I’m here?”  
  
“Because you don’t have a home to go to?” Ron asks, sounding almost exactly like his mother.  
  
“Just finished work,” she says, covering her mouth as she eats. “Got salsa class in fifteen minutes and I’m starving.”  
  
“Where do you get your energy, exactly?” Harry asks, only half joking.  
  
“Today I think it’s mostly from worrying,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “The engagement notice will be in the  _Prophet_ tomorrow. With a photograph.” She grimaces. “I’m dreading it. Every time someone points a camera at me, I accidentally pull a face like a lunatic.”  
  
Harry laughs with the others even though he knows it isn’t true at all. Ginny looks beautiful and natural in every photograph he has ever seen of her. Still, he won’t ignore a chance to wind her up.  
  
“Maybe Blaise will see it and change his mind,” he says.  
  
Despite having a mouth full of bread, Ginny manages to give him quite a look. Murdoch plants his paws on her knees and she strokes him as she chews.  
  
“Any progress on the Draco front?” she asks eventually.  
  
Harry groans. “You can all fuck off. All of you. I’ve decided.”  
  
“I’ll take that as a no,” Ginny says, amused. “It’s a shame he and Blaise lost touch. We could have had some leverage there.”  
  
“You make it sound like one of your investment deals,” Harry sighs. “Can we talk about something else now? I’m feeling a bit pathetic.”  
  
“I don’t think it’s pathetic. I think it’s romantic,” Ginny says, hugging him and spraying him lightly with breadcrumbs. “I should go. Thanks for the snack.”  
  
She gets up and disappears into the flames, leaving the kitchen feeling rather less vibrant without her.  
  
“Has anyone told her she doesn’t live here?” Ron says finally.  
  
Hermione smiles and picks up the wine bottle. “Do you think it would make any difference?”  
  
Harry fusses Murdoch under the table and holds out his glass.


	5. Chapter Five

**Fifth of December – the Daily Prophet**  
  
  
  
Harry wakes to find the sunrise painting his bedroom in shades of orange and pink, and a snoring Murdoch draped over most of his lower body. He strokes the daft dog and closes his eyes, basking in the sensation of an empty Saturday morning and taking a moment to appreciate the clearness of his head. He may have only had two glasses of wine, but he’s never been very good at drinking and he’ll take a victory where he finds one. Besides, tonight brings its own challenge—the annual get-together of all his old Hogwarts friends. And he’s looking forward to seeing them all, of course he is, but at the same time…  
  
Taking a deep breath, Harry shakes away the unhelpful thoughts, extracts himself from underneath Murdoch and heads for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, the two of them are striding through the streets of London together, huffing out clouds of warm breath into the cold air and relishing the crisp morning sunshine.  
  
“No, we’re not going to the park right now,” Harry says when Murdoch catches a scent on the breeze and pulls on his lead in the wrong direction. “We’re going to buy a newspaper because Ginny is getting married and… yes, I know you like Ginny,” he laughs, watching Murdoch’s paws lift off the ground in his excitement. “I like her, too. That’s why we need to see her looking silly in the paper.”  
  
Despite the bright sunshine, the wind is so cold that Harry can’t feel his nose or hands by the time they reach Diagon Alley. Fumbling his change, he buys a copy of the  _Daily Prophet_  from a woman with a wooden cart and makes a beeline for a coffee shop where he knows the owner likes dogs in general and Murdoch in particular.  
  
“Well, don’t you make a dapper pair this morning?” she says, setting down Harry’s tea and toast and beaming at both of them. “May I?”  
  
Harry nods and she offers a bone-shaped treat to Murdoch, who almost takes her fingertips off in his enthusiasm.  
  
“Sorry,” Harry says. “I don’t feed him.”  
  
The woman grins, dashing back to the counter when another customer hurries in from the cold. Harry flips through the paper, ignoring the articles and focusing on finding Ginny and Blaise’s picture. It’s been a long time since he read the  _Prophet_ , and he doubts it has changed much.  
  
“Here we are,” he says at last, locating the announcement and showing it to Murdoch. “She’s full of shit, isn’t she, Murdo? She looks great. They both do.”  
  
Murdoch sneezes violently and then looks around for the source of the sound.  
  
“Well, exactly.”  
  
Harry gazes at the photograph. It sits under the heading ‘Weasley-Zabini Engagement’ beside two similar announcements, and though all the people in the photographs are smiling, his friends seem to light up the page with their relaxed, radiant happiness.  
  
The door opens again. The woman behind the counter laughs. Harry sighs and fiddles with his tea cup.  
  
“You’re not actually reading that rag, are you?” someone says, and Harry’s head snaps up.  
  
“Erm,” he says, fighting the sensation that his stomach is trying to leap into his chest. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Draco raises an eyebrow. “I was thinking of buying some lunch.”  
  
“Lunch,” Harry repeats, mouth turning dry. “You should. I mean… if you want to.”  
  
“Yeah,” Draco says, shifting on the spot and looking about as comfortable as Harry feels. “Well, my flat is just around the corner, but I haven’t been shopping and I… am telling you all of this for no reason at all. I’ll stop now.”  
  
“If you want to,” Harry repeats, dying to look away from him but unable to break eye contact. Draco’s eyes are holding him in place, and how dare they? Harry wants to tell him to stop it, but he has the strongest feeling that anything he says right now could come out as ‘I love you’.  
  
“What’s the food like here?” Draco says eventually, and when he looks away to examine the specials board, Harry slumps in his seat, heart pounding.  
  
“It’s… yeah… it’s food,” Harry says, feeling proud of himself for a fraction of a second and then hearing the words out loud. Before he can stop himself, he leaps out of his seat, surprising a yelp out of Murdoch. “Sorry, I have to go. I have… Murdoch has an appointment. See you on Monday!”  
  
With that, he hurries out of the café, stumbling more than once as a confused Murdoch twists around on his lead. Once out of sight, he crumbles, leaning against the wall of a yarn shop, clutching Murdoch’s lead in one hand and his newspaper in the other, face burning and stomach tipping from side to side.  
  
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” he mumbles, closing his eyes and wishing to disappear.  
  
When, a minute or two later, he remembers he can do just that, he picks up Murdoch and Disapparates, collapsing back onto his sofa without taking off his coat and staring at the ceiling. How is it, he wonders, that working with Draco all day, every day, is gruelling but totally possible, but a surprise, out-of-context Draco that wants to have lunch is far more than he can deal with?  
  
Murdoch leaps up onto the sofa next to him and swishes his tail against the pillows. Harry looks at him. He has the strangest feeling that the daft dog found the whole thing to be a ripping adventure and is ready to go again. Harry sighs, knowing he will have to leave him at home for the whole evening and feeling rather remorseful.  
  
“Okay. I need a few minutes to stop having a heart attack and then I’ll take you to the park for a proper walk. Deal?”  
  
Murdoch bounces and knocks a mug onto the floor with his tail.  
  
“Alright then.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
“Yeah, definitely,” Harry says vaguely, gazing over the shoulder of the person speaking to him and into the side of Katie Bell’s head.  
  
It’s not that he doesn’t love Katie to pieces, but it had been her bright idea, several years ago, to randomly assign the seating at their December meet-ups, and now, a part of him really, really wants her to spill red wine on her white dress. She’d be able to spell the stain out eventually, but she would be irritated, just like he is now, sitting politely and listening to Hannah Abbott’s obnoxious boyfriend educate him on corruption within the Ministry.  
  
“I could tell you a few things about the Auror department,” he says, pointing his glass at Harry.  
  
“What is it that you do, exactly, Merrill?” asks Luna from several feet down the table.  
  
Harry smiles at his empty plate.  
  
“Well, all sorts of things,” Merrill says airily. “The point is, I know what goes on…”  
  
Harry stops listening, instead opting to look around the bustling restaurant. They come here every year and have done for more than a decade, but that never stops the staff from staring in disbelief when they all arrive, saying, ‘You want a table for  _how many_?” and then when Katie says ‘Forty-two, I booked in July’, there is a frantic scramble through diaries and bits of paper and a mad rush to find a space for them all. It’s the same chaos every year, but it’s a chaos that has become tradition, like the wax-covered Chianti bottles and the waiter who sings rude songs in Italian and the attempts by various people to pay the entire bill.  
  
The food Is always excellent, the wine is cheap, and if any of the other customers complain about the noise, they just call out the head chef to put up industrial strength silencing charms. It is a perfect venue for a group of old friends to reminisce and swap news about their lives. The trouble is, Harry thinks, everyone else’s news  _and_  lives seem to be quite a bit more exciting than his.  
  
Despite sitting at the far end of the table, he has already heard two more engagement announcements, seen three sets of wedding photographs and a professional photoshoot with a baby too young to hold up its own head. At the other end of the table, Ron, Blaise and Ginny are noisily admiring pictures of Alicia’s new broom and three-year contract with the Holyhead Harpies. Beside Neville, Hermione is touching her belly instinctively as Parvati and her boyfriend chatter excitedly about their imminent arrival.  
  
“It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” enthuses Demelza, two seats away from Harry. “It’s just a different world underwater. I’m going to see if I can get certified and maybe teach on the Cornish coast.”  
  
“You’re certifiable,” Seamus laughs. “You wouldn’t catch me offering myself up as shark bait.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Merrill scoffs. “There aren’t any sharks around the British Isles. It’s far too cold.”  
  
  
“You’d think that, but actually we have basking sharks and blue sharks,” Demelza says, smiling. “I’ve seen them. They’re very beautiful.”  
  
Merrill stares at her crossly for a moment and then turns away.  
  
“Well, never mind sharks,” he says, holding up his whisky tumbler to be refilled. The waiter hurries over and Hannah shrinks into her chair, clearly embarrassed. “Let’s talk about something important. Still on your own, Harry?”  
  
Suddenly finding himself the focus of several pairs of eyes, Harry laughs uncomfortably.  
  
“If you’re asking if I’m single, then yes,” he says, and he has the feeling they have had this conversation before.  
  
“You know, Harry, single wizards over thirty-five have a significantly higher risk of heart disease, spattergroit and Sumatran madness,” Merrill pronounces, and yes, Harry thinks he remembers this now.  
  
He has only met Merrill once before, almost a year ago exactly, and while he thinks the diseases may have changed, the perils of being single have not.  
  
“Well, Merrill, I’m not over thirty-five,” he says pleasantly, and rewards himself with a large gulp of wine.  
  
“Oh,” he says, sounding disappointed. “Still, you probably ought to find yourself a man before it’s too late.”  
  
“If you must know, I don’t really have the time for that right now. I’m very busy with work,” Harry says. It’s a lie and an obvious one to anyone who knows him, but his patience is wearing thin and the last thing he wants is a confrontation.  
  
“You know, Harry, I’m surprised you’re not Head Auror by now. Haven’t you any ambition?” Merrill asks innocently, and the last of Harry’s good humour disintegrates.  
  
Catching the look on his face, Hannah touches her boyfriend’s arm. “Leave it, Merrill,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “My friends don’t want to be lectured to.”  
  
“Can’t you see I’m talking?” Merrill snaps.  
  
Hannah draws away from him and stares at her lap. Harry opens his mouth to speak but Merrill is already back in full flow, now directing his opinions at Demelza again, and Hannah looks up and meets his eyes.  
  
“Sorry about him,” she sighs. “His Quidditch team lost today and he’s in a bit of a foul mood.”  
  
“That’s no excuse,” Harry says, horrified. “Hannah, what are you doing with him?”  
  
“You must be the fifth person who’s said that to me,” she says quietly.  
  
“In… how long have you been together?”  
  
“No, I mean tonight,” she says, mouth twitching into a grim smile.  
  
Neville leaves his place halfway down the table and crouches beside Hannah’s chair. Merrill, who is still holding forth about the migration habits of sharks, doesn’t seem to notice.  
  
“If you want someone to gag him and leave him on a park bench, I’d be delighted,” Neville offers.  
  
Hannah lets out a sound that is half laugh and half sniffle. “Thanks, Nev, but I think it’ll do me good if I break up with him myself.”  
  
“He can’t even hear you, can he?” Harry says, glancing at Merrill and then back at Hannah.  
  
“Not over the sound of his own voice, no,” she sighs. “I’m going to get some air for a minute.”  
  
When she stands up, Neville offers his arm and together they head for a side door that leads out onto a small patio. Harry watches them go and then stares at Merrill, waiting for him to notice. After a minute or two, Parvati stands and makes cautious progress towards the bathroom, one hand supporting her back as her bump threatens to destabilise her.  
  
“She’s ready to pop,” Katie laughs.  
  
“I hope she doesn’t,” Parvati’s boyfriend says anxiously. “I might have read all the books but I still don’t think I’d be any use if she just… you know.” He gestures with his hands.  
  
“Your instincts might be more powerful than you think,” Hermione says. “I had Hugo at home because he was just so desperate to come out. Ron was brilliant.”  
  
Ron beams at her from several seats away. “It was sort of fun. Scary fun, but still.”  
  
Harry sips his wine and smiles. He has almost forgotten about Merrill when he suddenly slaps his hand down on the table, making several people jump.  
  
“You know, Harry, having children is the best thing you will ever do. Being a parent is the most important thing anyone can do with their life. The only important thing, in fact.”  
  
A hush falls over the table. Harry is all too aware that everyone is waiting to see how he will react to such a statement, and he has no words. They are around somewhere, seething around in a sea of indignation, vying to leap out of his mouth and slap this ridiculous man in the face, but however hard he tries, nothing happens.  
  
“Are you a parent?” he manages, voice stretched thin.  
  
“Not yet,” Merrill says smugly. “But Hannah knows I want children very soon. They’ll be my ultimate accomplishment.”  
  
“Have you even noticed that she hasn’t been sitting next to you for the last few minutes?” Harry asks, throwing back the last of his wine and instantly regretting it.  
  
He can’t have had that many. He’s just been sipping slowly… he doesn’t even remember filling his glass after the first time, but now that he looks around, there seem to be an awful lot of empty bottles on the table. As though it has been waiting for him to catch up, a cold wave of nausea rushes through him and he has to sit up very straight to avoid sliding off his chair. When he turns back to Merrill, his seat is empty, and Hermione is eyeing him worriedly from the other end of the table.  
  
“I’m fine,” he whispers, but it comes out as a sort of squeak, and Hermione is out of her chair before he can register what is happening.  
  
“Harry, you look dreadful,” she says, sitting in Merrill’s vacated seat.  
  
“Oh, no,” he mumbles, eyes stinging. “Do I look thirty-five? I’m going to get spattergroit.”  
  
“You don’t actually believe him, do you?” she says, grabbing his hand. “He’s horrible. I bet Hannah’s breaking up with him right now, and good for her.”  
  
Harry picks up his dessert spoon and examines it, frowning. The cold metal is soothing against his warm skin and, for a moment, he feels comforted, until he sees his reflection in the concave surface and knows that there’s no hope for him.  
  
“I’m never going to be a parent, I’m never going to be not single, I’m never going to do any of the important things,” he says, half-listening to the soft chatter around him and hoping that no one can hear him. He’d prefer it if Hermione couldn’t hear him either, but he’s buggered there.  
  
“Harry, don’t say that,” she soothes, eyebrows twisting into a little knot. “You’re wonderful and you mustn’t let a wanker like that upset you.”  
  
Something about her use of the word ‘wanker’ tickles him and a bubble of laughter escapes before the heavy weight settles back into the pit of his stomach.  
  
“Come on, ’Mione,” he sighs. “I’m a disaster. I hate my job, I live with a dog, I’m hung up on someone who will never feel the same way… everyone had all these hopes for me but I basically peaked at seventeen years old and have been fucking mediocre ever since. Everyone thinks it, they just don’t say so. Except for Merrill, because he’s a wanker.”  
  
“He _is_  a wanker,” Hannah says with feeling.  
  
Harry looks up to see her tear-streaked face, her windswept hair and the wine bottle in her hand.  
  
“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” he says, closing one eye to bring her properly into focus.  
  
She bends down and hugs him, clutching the bottle to his back and brushing apple-scented hair against his face. He reaches up to wrap an arm around her back, surprised.  
  
“I know. But if anyone’s a disaster, it’s me,” she says, pulling back and retaking her seat. “Sixteen months of my life, wasted on that. It’s gone now and it’s not coming back.”  
  
She pauses, surprised when a little celebration passes around the table.  
  
“Sorry,” Demelza says, cringing. “But you’re far better off without him.”  
  
Hannah smiles. “That’s right. And Harry… please don’t waste your life being miserable. In fact, none of you should waste any time being miserable.” She opens the bottle with a flourish. “Let’s get some dessert, have some more wine, and pretend the idiot never existed!”  
  
“I will certainly drink to that, old friend,” Blaise booms, raising his empty glass.  
  
Within seconds, the waiter has been called and the wine is once more flowing freely. Harry waves off Hannah’s attempt to refill his glass, opting to sit and enjoy the festive atmosphere for a few minutes before he really has to head home or pass out. Finally, in a flurry of hugs and kind words and a box of tiramisu ‘for later’, he is stuffed into the fireplace and instructed to drink plenty of water before bed.  
  
Unfortunately, he forgets this instruction altogether when he is set upon by Murdoch and almost knocked to the kitchen tiles by his enthusiastic greeting.  
  
“We have to go to bed,” he says, enunciating each word as best he can.  
  
Murdoch flies off up the stairs and Harry follows him at a more careful pace, stripping off his smart clothes and collapsing onto the mattress with a sigh. He no longer feels sick but is nagged by the suspicion that his bedroom is slowly rotating and he could fall off at any moment. When Murdoch bounds onto the bed and licks his face, Harry holds onto him tightly, sensing that the dog will somehow keep him from tumbling into the abyss.  
  
“Night, Murdoch,” he whispers, burying his face in the warm fur. His head all at once full of grey eyes pinning him to his seat in the café, flickering over the specials board, confused at his awkward exit, he lets out a long, shuddering breath. “Night, Draco.”


	6. Chapter Six

**Sixth of December**  – bare trees  
  
  
  
Dragged into consciousness by the pounding in his head, Harry opens his eyes, only to find the colours of the sunrise stabbing at his eyeballs. He quickly shuts them and pulls the duvet over his head with a groan. Moments later, he has to emerge in order to displace Murdoch, who is draped over him and pressing down painfully on his bladder.  
  
“Move, daft dog,” he mumbles, shoving Murdoch and discovering that his muscles have turned to water and he has no choice but to try to wriggle out from under the heavy bugger.  
  
Murdoch yawns in his face. Harry shudders, even though he suspects that his own breath smells worse now that the red wine has stripped all moisture from his mouth and coated his tongue with sand. As he moves, acid rises in the back of his throat and he frees himself with a mammoth effort, sprinting to the bathroom and making it just in time. He splashes his face with water and stares at his reflection wearily.  
  
“You are an idiot,” he says, reaching for his toothbrush and cleansing the foul taste from his mouth. “No hangover potion for you. You deserve to suffer,” he adds, mumbling around the minty bristles.  
  
His resolve lasts as long as it takes him to shower and dress, impeded in both tasks by the raw, throbbing pain in his head. When he gives in and downs a cupful of the fierce-tasting potion, the relief is immediate. Physically, he feels almost completely normal. The pain has dissolved, leaving him with an aching hunger for carbohydrates and tea, which he thinks he can just about manage. Unfortunately, now that his head is clear, memories of the previous night are already rushing in to fill the space.  
  
He remembers holding Hermione’s hand and telling her he was a disaster. He remembers feeling like he was going to fall off his chair. Hannah hugging him and calling Merrill a wanker. Blaise’s huge hands steadying him as he stepped into the fireplace. Katie grabbing his hand and reminding him to drink plenty of water. All of them, they were all so kind, and fuck, he feels so small.  
  
Quietly horrified, he makes his way downstairs. No longer feeling hungry, he puts down biscuits for Murdoch and makes himself a vat of tea, sitting at the kitchen table and drinking it slowly. He closes his eyes, inhaling the fragrant steam, and he can see Hannah, tear-stained but determined.  
  
_“Harry… please don’t waste your life being miserable.”_  
  
She’s right, of course. He’s an idiot, and if he doesn’t start making some changes, he’s going to be an idiot forever. Draco is never going to love him back, that’s for sure. He has never seen Draco interested in anything but bakewell tarts and gadgets since they began sharing an office, and perhaps he’s being unfair to expect anything more. Unfair to both of them, in fact. All he’s doing is waiting around for something that is never going to happen.  
  
“I can move on,” he says to Murdoch, chest aching at the thought. “I can let go. It’s fine.”  
  
Of course, it’s not fine. Even the thought of it hurts him so acutely that he has to catch his breath, but it won’t always be like that. Eventually, he’ll be able to smile at Draco and just feel… he doesn’t know. Something bland and pleasant, maybe, like the feeling a person gets when they look at a nice view or eat an unremarkable chocolate.  
  
If Harry’s honest, he’s not sure he believes himself, but it’s a start. He has to try.  
  
“What about a new job, eh, Murdo?” he says, grabbing yesterday’s _Prophet_  from the table and searching for the ‘situations vacant’ section.  
  
It’s unlikely that he’ll find his perfect position, considering he doesn’t really know what it is yet, but there’s always a chance for inspiration.  
  
“I could leave the Auror office and do magical canal boat tours,” he says, addressing Murdoch, who has now scrambled onto the chair next to his and is listening eagerly. “Or I could do some volunteer work, cataloguing dragons in Finland… would you like that?”  
  
Murdoch sneezes and chews on the top corner of the newspaper.  
  
“Yeah, I think you would. Or I could train as Madam Malkin’s new apprentice… or, hey, what about if I stayed in the Ministry and just moved down the hall to the… oh, god.”  
  
Harry stares at the advertisement in front of him, pulse racing and fingers gripping the edges of the paper so tightly that they begin to tear.  
  
**_Strategic Apparatus Technician_** _(one post)_  
  
_This is a unique opportunity in a lively, challenging environment. The successful applicant will work alongside the Auror department as a provider and researcher of magical equipment, and as a vital part of the SAT team. Experience in technical magic a must, candidates should also be self-motivated and able to manage their own workload. Apply by owl to Vanessa Seddon (Supervisor, Auror department). Closing date: 12 th December 2014._  
  
Horrified, Harry reads the words again, and then a third time, because this cannot be happening.  
  
“What the actual fuck…?” he whispers, dropping the paper to the table and staring down at it in disbelief.  
  
The Ministry is advertising Draco’s job. The job that he loves and is still performing to an astonishing standard, despite Seddon’s best attempts to make his life a misery. And of course, that’s it; she has never liked him, and now she has decided to have him replaced without even telling him.  
  
Harry leans on the table and pushes his fingers into his damp hair. It can’t be that simple, of course; the Minister would never approve such a slimy move… then again, the Minister is a very busy man and it wouldn’t be the first time that Seddon has taken a situation into her own hands.  
  
“But it’s Draco’s job,” he mumbles, barely noticing when Murdoch grabs the newspaper by the corner and yanks it onto the floor.  
  
There’s nothing for it. He has to say something. God knows how long that advertisement has been there. Draco never reads the  _Prophet_. He’ll have no idea.  
  
Harry surges out of his seat and is already halfway into his coat when he stops. He’s letting go. Moving on. He’s a grown-up and he’s got to start behaving like one. He doesn’t even know where Draco’s flat is and he certainly doesn’t know what he might be up to on a Sunday morning. He’s pretty sure that work friends don’t turn up at one another’s homes unannounced, even if they might know something important.  
  
Harry lets out a long breath, caught between heart and head and ending up, as usual, all over the place. Murdoch presents him with a section of the front page bearing most of the word ‘DISASTER’ and part of a picture of a horse.  
  
“Thanks,” he says vaguely.  
  
Murdoch lashes his tail so ferociously that his entire body wags back and forth with it. Harry laughs, surprising himself, and finishes putting his coat on.  
  
“Come on.”  
  
Five minutes later, they are striding through the park, steps crunching on the frosty ground. The sun is shining brightly and the park is full of people. Most are dog-walkers like himself, but he also spots several brave joggers, limbs reddened by the cold, a group of mums with small children and a little knot of people in what Harry can only describe as church clothes. People are friendlier here than in the very centre of the city, which is fortunate as Murdoch absolutely insists on stopping to make a fuss of every person he can reach.  
  
“That’s enough, daft dog,” Harry says, reining him in when the little girl Murdoch is investigating seems to be about to lose one of her mittens.  
  
“Bye, dog!” she calls, twisting around to wave to Murdoch all the way down the path.  
  
“You have more friends than I do,” Harry sighs, suddenly feeling rather weary.  
  
He finds a bench in a quiet area and lowers himself onto it, wincing when the cold metal spreads a chill right through his trouser fabric. His jacket is warm but too short to protect his backside from the cold, and he finds himself thinking of Draco’s long wool coat, which leads naturally to thoughts of Draco in his long wool coat, and before long, Harry’s mind is racing away without him.  
  
He stares into the middle distance, allowing his eyes to half-focus on a group of tall trees at the other side of the path. His gaze travels slowly up the smooth, silvery trunks, along the bare branches and up into the clear blue sky as he remembers the time one of Draco’s experiments contaminated the bonsai tree his mother had sent from Japan, and the once tiny little thing had been through the ceiling before either of them had time to react.  
  
He distinctly remembers Draco gazing at it and saying ‘Oh,’ as though that sort of thing happened all the time. That being said, when Harry had accidentally set his desk on fire, Draco’s reaction had been ‘Well, that’s interesting’ and an _Aguamenti_  so casual Harry had wanted to laugh. He smiles now, thinking of it, and then stops. Because he has to. Because that’s what he’s doing now.  
  
Draco is a colleague and a friend and he’s going to be okay with that. Dragging in a breath of cold, winter-sharp air, Harry focuses on the trees until at last, his mind begins to settle. He still has no idea what he should do about Draco’s job, but it’s Sunday, and it won’t be long until he sees someone who always knows what to do.  
  
**~*~**  
  
“Right, so this is just hypothetical?” Hermione asks, still looking at Harry when she yells, “Rose, mind the dog’s tail with your wheel!”  
  
“Yeah, of course.”  
  
“So, if you found out something that was going to negatively impact my life but you couldn’t necessarily do anything about it… would I want you to tell me?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, accepting a cup of tea from a grim-faced Molly. “What’s the matter?”  
  
“He’s made my gravy into a  _spray_ ,” she says crossly, looking over her shoulder at where Arthur is fussing with a little device and humming to himself. “Who wants spray gravy? No one.”  
  
“It’s not a spray, Molly, love, it’s aerosolised,” Arthur corrects, beaming. “We’re going to have our gravy as a mist today.”  
  
“A mist?” Hermione mouths, bewildered, and Molly sighs.  
  
“If I’d known he was going to turn into Chester Boomerang the moment he went part time, I might have tried to talk him out of it,” she says, tone a mix of exasperation and affection.  
  
“Who?” Harry asks as she bustles away to reclaim her gravy.  
  
“Heston Blumenthal?” Hermione guesses. “He does all that molecular gastronomy stuff.”  
  
“I don’t think I want misty gravy,” Rose says, wheeling up behind her grandparents. “Won’t it be cold?”  
  
“It might be… a bit,” Arthur says, and then smiles at her. “But it’s important to try new things.”  
  
“The rest of the food will be hot, dear,” Molly assures. “If I can help it.”  
  
“I’d want you to tell me,” Hermione says, and it takes Harry a moment to retrace the steps of their conversation.  
  
“Okay,” Harry says, filing away the information and wondering if he should ask someone else, just for the sake of balance.  
  
“Is this about Draco?” she asks suddenly.  
  
Harry’s heart skips unpleasantly. “Do you know something?”  
  
“No, but when you start throwing around hypothetical questions, it’s usually about Draco.”  
  
“What’s about Draco?” Ron asks, sitting beside Hermione and plonking Hugo on his knee.  
  
“Nothing,” Harry says firmly. “I’m moving on.”  
  
“Are you really?” Ginny asks, bounding over with Blaise at her side. “Are you sure it’s not the wine talking?”  
  
“Are we having wine?” George demands, silently passing a tray of carrots to his father behind his mother’s back.  
  
“No, Harry drank it all last night,” Ron says, and Harry pulls a childish face at him.  
  
“Shh, you’re missing the show,” Blaise whispers. “She’s just about to find out that he’s got the carrots.”  
  
As one, the others turn to look at Molly and Arthur and Harry follows suit. Hermione’s right. He has to tell Draco what he knows. He’ll do it tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to settle in for pre-dinner theatre.  
  
“What did you do with my carrots?” Molly sighs, hands on hips.  
  
“They’re better now,” Arthur declares, adjusting his flowery apron and turning to her with a tray of gelatinous orange objects. At the look on her face, he hurries to correct himself. “They’re… different now.”  
  
“Don’t. Touch. The. Pork,” Molly says, indicating the oven. “Do not.”  
  
“Place your bets now,” George says loudly. “Will Dad touch the pork? Will Mum murder him with a potato masher?”  
  
“Two Sickles on Dad touching the pork before one o’clock,” Ginny says. “And a Knut on the potato masher thing.”  
  
“Behave yourselves, all of you,” Molly says.  
  
Harry wonders if he remembered to bring his wallet.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Seventh of December**  – buttons  
  
  
  
In the interests of moving on, being a grown up and all the other promises he has made to himself, Harry heads to Blackwell at first light, hoping to get a handle on the mystery of Garrett’s. If nothing else, he tells himself, a morning’s hard work will take his mind off Draco until he returns with lunch and the horrible news from the _Prophet_.  
  
On the steps of the town hall, he runs into Bob from number three, who greets him with a smile and a characteristically laconic ‘hello there’ before ambling away. Inside, a kind young lady helps Harry to find the plans and blueprints for the whole row of terraces to which Garrett’s belongs, and he sits and pores over them until his stomach begins to grumble in protest. With the receptionist’s help, he makes multiple copies of everything and stuffs them into his coat, then runs out to the railings to retrieve Murdoch.  
  
Clutching a hot bag full of food from the Breakfast Barrel, Harry passes the library, where he finds Joe the librarian attaching to the side of the building a huge, colourful sign advertising ‘Storytime with Mr Bobble – Christmas tales and festive crafts – tea and hot mince pies’. Joe waves to him, Mohican bobbing in the breeze, and Harry waves back, noting the wheelchair ramp and wondering if he can persuade Hermione to bring the children up for an afternoon. Rose might be too old for Mr Bobble, but she loves libraries just like her mum, and the whole thing sounds perfect for Hugo.  
  
Startled by how settled he already feels in the little town, Harry shakes himself and walks with Murdoch back to Garrett’s. Together, they eat bacon and toast from the breakfast barrel by the light of Harry’s wand, and when Murdoch curls up underneath one of the round tables to sleep off his meal, Harry takes a seat, spreading out the plans one by one and staring at them. He runs his fingers over the lines and symbols, searching for something that might give him a way in. A secret passage, perhaps, or a room hidden behind a fireplace… there has to be something.  
  
Unfortunately, he finds nothing out of the ordinary, and when his eyes begin to hurt from squinting despite his best efforts to light the room, he gives up, slumping in his chair and stroking the head that suddenly appears on his lap. A quick  _Tempus_  tells him that it’s almost two in the afternoon and he gazes down at Murdoch, stomach churning. He knows what he has to do and putting it off will only make it worse, but the knowledge doesn’t lighten his mood or his feet as he gathers his plans and his dog and prepares to Disapparate.  
  
When he walks into the office, Draco is sitting at his desk, but Harry doesn’t look at him directly. Aiming to keep his tone neutral but friendly, he sets down the paper bag beside Draco’s quills and shrugs off his coat.  
  
“Chicken salad roll,” he says, unclipping Murdoch’s lead. “They didn’t have any bakewells but I got you a coconut macaroon. I don’t know if they’re any good because someone ate mine.”  
  
There is no response, and Harry turns, surprised. He’s never known Draco to be impolite in all the time they’ve worked together and when he actually looks at him, he knows something is very wrong. Draco often sits at his desk in silence, but not like this. He isn’t tucked up and bent over a spell or a piece of equipment and his eyes are not narrowed in deep focus but blank, gazing at nothing in particular as he sits bolt upright, hands resting on his desk and feet on the floor. He is wearing shoes and his hair is immaculate and Harry feels something like dread settle in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Every last shred of careful neutrality flies out of the window in the moment it takes Harry to cross the office and sit on the edge of Draco’s desk.  
  
“What happened?” he asks, and it feels like several hours before Draco turns his head and regards him blankly.  
  
“Seddon fired me.”  
  
Harry’s heart twists. The bit of newspaper in his pocket seems to crinkle and burn accusingly.  
  
“When?”  
  
Draco shrugs and looks at his hands as though he has never seen them before.  
  
“An hour ago, perhaps. She said I needed to stay until the end of the day and tie up loose ends, but I’m fairly sure I’ve just been sitting here,” he says, brow wrinkling, and Harry reaches out to touch his shoulder before withdrawing and shoving his hands into his pockets.  
  
_It wouldn’t have helped,_  he tells himself firmly. If she was going to do it today, she wouldn’t have let him change her mind.  
  
Not that it matters, because Draco is hurt and Harry feels sick and furious at the same time.  
  
“Why didn’t you come and find me?” he asks, trying to keep the edge from his voice but hearing it all the same. “I was only in Blackwell, you could have…”  
  
“I’ve just been sitting here, trying to understand it.” Draco meets his eyes now. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”  
  
Harry stares back at him for a moment and then shakes his head. Heart hammering, he pulls the scrap of paper from his pocket and places it on Draco’s desk.  
  
“I saw this on Saturday,” he says quietly. “I don’t think it matters what excuse she came up with in the end.”  
  
Draco stares at the advertisement for a long time. Harry watches the horrible understanding settle over his face, startled when Draco laughs. It’s a hollow, rough sort of laugh that catches him somewhere painful, and he has no idea how to respond.  
  
Draco picks up the scrap of paper and crumples it in his fist. “She’s wanted me out from day one, Harry.”  
  
“I know,” he says, hating himself for not fighting harder. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t you dare,” Draco snaps, and the eyes that lift to Harry’s are suddenly bright with fury. “Don’t you dare apologise for her.”  
  
“I’m not, I’m…” Harry sighs, grabbing the edge of the desk tightly. “I don’t know what I am.”  
  
Draco laughs again. “Neither do I. I’m certainly not a SAT any more.”  
  
Harry stares at the floor and strokes Murdoch, who has finally seen fit to investigate the situation. In the corridor outside, the footsteps and voice of their colleagues seem to echo more harshly than usual. For several minutes the three of them sit in silence, a pocket of painful stillness in the middle of a hive of magic and chaos. Finally, Harry takes a deep breath and speaks.  
  
“Draco… what reason did she give? She can’t just get rid of you without  _something_.”  
  
“Does it really matter?”  
  
“No, I suppose not,” Harry says, watching Murdoch insinuate himself between Draco’s legs and lay his head down on one knee.  
  
Draco stares down at him and ruffles his ears with trembling fingers. His whole body seems strung tight enough to shatter and Harry is terrified. He holds himself still on the edge of the desk and tries desperately to figure out what to do next.  
  
“You know what?” Draco says suddenly. “I’m going to the pub. Are you coming?”  
  
“Now?” Harry asks, thrown by this rapid change in mood.  
  
“Now. I’m not staying until the end of the day—what’s Seddon going to do? Fire me again?”  
  
“I suppose not,” Harry says, but Draco isn’t listening.  
  
He is out of his chair and darting around the office, shrinking down tools and boxes and stuffing them into his coat pockets.  
  
“That’s mine… and that’s mine… and she’s not having those,” he mutters to himself, yanking open his desk drawers and shaking the contents through a clever little spell that miniaturises everything and funnels it into his leather briefcase.  
  
Harry wants to smile—he has never seen anyone pack up so efficiently, and god, he loves Draco. He can’t let go. It won’t be ‘fine’. He has managed barely twenty-four hours of disciplined denial and here he is, already right back to where he started. He doesn’t want to go drinking with Draco. He doesn’t want to go drinking with anyone right now, and wine in particular can fuck right off. The trouble is, even as he tells himself he won’t, he already knows that he’ll go anywhere this man asks him to.  
  
“Does anyone even know you’re back from Blackwell?” Draco asks, standing in the middle of the room and buttoning his coat.  
  
“No,” Harry admits.  
  
“Good. Then let’s go.”  
  
Harry hesitates. This already feels dangerous and there is something bright and unsteady in Draco’s eyes that could be well be his undoing. But he finds himself saying ‘Give me a minute’ and hurrying down the corridor with Murdoch at his heels. Ron frowns in confusion when he is handed the lead with a desperate look and a ‘Please? Thanks,’ but he’s a good friend and Harry knows that the daft dog will be well taken care of, whatever happens to his master tonight.  
  
“This won’t actually solve anything, you know,” he says to Draco in the lift up to the Atrium.  
  
Draco stares at the grille as the floors race past. “I know.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
“What sort of a name is ‘Bishop’s Finger’ anyway?” Draco asks, frowning at his half-empty beer bottle and then looking at Harry as though expecting a sensible answer.  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry says. He picks up the empties on the table and examines them. “What sort of a name is ‘Old Slapper’? Or ‘The Dog’s Bollocks’? Or… ‘Sheepshagger?’”  
  
“You look like the sort of person who would know about beer,” Draco says, shrugging.  
  
“I’m not sure how I should feel about that,” Harry says, laughing and realising that he is already starting to feel lightheaded. “You chose them all and don’t think I don’t know you were picking the ones with the silly names.”  
  
“Well,” Draco says imperiously, and then slumps, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. “This is a strange pub. All the beers have silly names and the Christmas tree is upside down.”  
  
Harry looks over his shoulder to where a fully lit tree is dangling from the ceiling. It’s odd, but the pub is warm, the chairs are comfortable, and the comforting scents of beer and chips drape around everything in a pleasant haze.  
  
“True, but again, you chose this place. I don’t know how to help you.”  
  
Draco smiles slowly. “You don’t?”  
  
Face heating, Harry reaches for his drink and gulps at it. For a beer called ‘Wake Up Dead’, it’s actually pretty good.  
  
“Shut up, Draco,” he says, wiping his mouth.  
  
“I shan’t. Did you know that Seddon’s parents used to be friendly with mine?”  
  
Harry inhales sharply, jolted by the change of subject and the sudden change of music from an instrumental carol to a noisy pop song. He puts down his beer and wonders if perhaps he’s had enough.  
  
“I didn’t know that. I take it they’re not friends any more,” he says carefully.  
  
Draco snorts. “My parents don’t have friends these days. They’re perpetual tourists with more money than sense.”  
  
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall,” Harry admits, picturing Lucius and Narcissa wandering around old buildings and being confused by Muggles of all nationalities. “Do you think they’ll ever settle down?”  
  
Draco drains his beer bottle and sighs. “I don’t know. My father seems to find being homeless terribly novel.”  
  
“Isn’t that sort of… tasteless?” Harry ventures, wrinkling his nose.  
  
Draco laughs. “Yes. Unfortunately, he isn’t going to change now. I think things work better for everyone this way.” He grimaces. “Of course, now I have to write to them and tell them I’ve lost my job. That will be a fucking treat.”  
  
“We’ll figure something out,” Harry says firmly, and when Draco grants him a flicker of a smile, he almost believes it. “If you tell me what Seddon said, maybe we can… I don’t know.”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about Seddon,” Draco sighs. He stands slowly. “Want another one? Loser?”  
  
“Bugger off,” Harry mumbles.  
  
“No, I mean… do you want a Loser? Or a Pearl Necklace?” Draco says loudly, reading the names from the taps and swaying slightly.  
  
“Water?” Harry says hopefully.  
  
“I can’t see that one,” Draco says, patting Harry’s shoulder as he wanders towards the bar. “I’ll find you something.”  
  
Harry just watches him, helplessly drawn to the slender figure, dark clothes and pale hair, hands moving in animated gestures as the man behind the bar nods and then grins, shaking his head. If Draco doesn’t want to talk about Seddon, he’s not going to push it. That’s fine. They can talk about other things, safe things, like beer and Christmas and the fact that one doesn’t usually give a bartender a twenty pound note as a tip on an eight pound round of drinks.  
  
“Draco, did you just give that man twenty quid?” he asks when Draco returns to the table.  
  
“I gave him the purple one,” he says, placing a bottle in front of Harry and sitting down. “He seemed very pleased.”  
  
“Yeah, I bet he did,” Harry sighs, reclaiming the rest of his Muggle money from Draco and stuffing it into his pocket. “He probably thinks you’re coming onto him.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Draco says. “Drink your Loser. You know, the thing about Seddon is…”  
  
“You said you didn’t want to talk about Seddon,” Harry points out, tasting the new beer with some resignation.  
  
Draco leans on the table on his elbows, eyes intense. Harry has to look away, focusing instead on the tiny buttons on his shirt, each one made of some sort of iridescent material like the inside of a seashell.  
  
“Stop looking at my buttons,” Draco says, and something in his tone makes Harry’s stomach tighten.  
  
He forces himself to make eye contact. “Why?”  
  
“Because they’re fancy.”  
  
“I’m not fancy,” Harry says gloomily, and Draco frowns.  
  
“Not a like a button, no,” he says, and then draws back into his chair, much to Harry’s relief and disappointment. “She said I approved equipment for the field that was unsafe. My error caused… well, there was an injury, and it was a fireable offence.”  
  
Harry blinks, bewildered. “What?”  
  
“That’s what she kept saying. ‘It’s a  _fireable offence_ , Draco’,” he says, imitating Seddon’s false, bright tone and bookending the words with vicious air quotes. “She enjoyed it.”  
  
“But surely you didn’t…” Harry mumbles, frowning and scrubbing at his hair. “You didn’t do the thing. Approve dangerous equipment?”  
  
Draco scowls and picks at the label on his bottle. “Not as such, no. I tested some cloaked broomsticks for Weasley’s team and my report said they worked but needed more safety… you know, safety things. You know. Weasley took them out because it was an emergency, there was a falmunction… a malnuft… a cock up, and one of them got hurt.”  
  
“That was weeks ago,” Harry says, setting down his bottle a little too hard. “Collier broke her leg. Ron told me all about it. She’s fine now, she… what did Ron’s report say?” he demands.  
  
“All the right things, I’m sure,” Draco says, holding Harry’s eyes in a way that says ‘LISTEN’. “I’m not blaming Weasley, or Collier, or you, or anybody besides Seddon. She’s taken this thing and twisted it because she’s… well, I don’t know.”  
  
“A loser?” Harry offers, turning his bottle to face Draco. “Or… an old slapper? Sheepshagger?”  
  
Draco laughs, dropping his head onto his folded arms. “This is ridiculous,” he manages, voice wobbly.  
  
Harry stares at him, tingling all over with intoxicated longing. “Yep.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
The night air is shockingly cold against Harry’s face when he stumbles out of the pub and tries to keep up with Draco. He has no idea what time it is, but it’s dark and his stomach is roaring for something hot and greasy. Unfortunately, Draco seems to be leading him down a dark alley, footsteps ringing on the cobbles and briefcase banging against his legs. Harry is pretty certain that following him is a terrible idea, but at the same time, his instinct to make sure that Draco is as okay as he can be prickles through the beery haze in his brain and he knows he has no choice.  
  
“Come on,” Draco calls, eyes lit up like a cat’s in the light of Harry’s wand.  
  
“Maybe we should call it a night,” he suggests, stepping close enough to smell alcohol and warm lemons. “What do you think?”  
  
“Maybe we should,” Draco agrees. “But then again,  _maybe_  we should have shots!”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Draco is already grabbing his wand and his wrist and before he can react he is being whisked through space and spat out in what seems like the same dark alleyway. Caught in a wave of nausea, he drops into a crouch and braces himself against the cold wall, pulling in deep, slow breaths and slowly becoming aware of the pound of a bassline and the loud chatter of unseen people.  
  
“Where are we?” he demands.  
  
“Lightning,” Draco says brightly. “Pansy brought me here once before she moved away. You’ll like it; they have all sorts of shots with silly names.”  
  
Slowly, Harry stands up, taking his wand when Draco offers it. He tucks it away and walks around the corner, where the music is louder and the lights are moving in dizzying spirals.  
  
“No shots for me,” he says. “You can do what you like, I’m not your mother.”  
  
“Thank fuck for that,” Draco murmurs, brushing Harry’s shoulder with his own and heading for the door.  
  
Once inside, Harry is relieved to see that Lightning is not a huge, intimidating club but a café-bar with an attitude. The bar is long and shiny, sitting in front of a whole row of fridges full of drinks and a cocktail menu that covers an entire wall. Behind it, two attractive young men are shaking and pouring with incredible panache for a crowd of customers, most of whom are shuffling along to the music. Draco immediately joins the queue, looking so wonderfully out of place with his long coat and briefcase that Harry has to smile.  
  
He looks around at the various open tables and little booths and selects one, waving to Draco and pointing with a bit more vigour than he intends. At the next table, a man in a tight t-shirt bursts into laughter, but when Harry turns to him, he holds his hand up for a high-five, which Harry grants clumsily. Once seated, he looks around and comes to a very rapid conclusion.  
  
“Draco,” he says, leaning across the table and pretending there isn’t a bright green shot next to his elbow. “Is this a gay bar?”  
  
“Probably,” Draco says blithely. He downs his shot in one and shivers, pulling his feet up onto his chair and leaning towards Harry. “Are you upset?”  
  
“No, of course not,” Harry says a little too quickly. “I just… I don’t know the end of that sentence.”  
  
“I’m going to miss the way you don’t make sense,” Draco says, resting his chin in one hand and gazing at Harry in that way that makes him feel as if he’s about to fall apart. “When I go away… oh…. but I’ve already gone. It’s not fair, really, is it?”  
  
“It’s not,” Harry says, trying to raise his voice above the pounding music. “It’s not fair, but you don’t have to just… you know… _fuck_  Seddon.”  
  
Draco waves a dismissive hand. “Fuck everything.”  
  
“Hey, don’t be sad, blue eyes,” shouts a man in leather trousers and a very loud t-shirt.  
  
Draco frowns up at him. “Who on earth are you?”  
  
“You don’t even have blue eyes,” Harry mumbles to himself and groans.  
  
“My name’s Edward but my friends call me Mr Ed because I’m hung like a—”  
  
“Got it,” Harry interrupts.  
  
“Come on, mate,” the man says. “Is he with you?”  
  
“Well, no, we’re… we’re work friends,” Harry says awkwardly.  
  
Draco gives him a look that he can’t decipher and takes his shot.  
  
“I guess he’s fair game, then,” Edward says. “Why don’t you come and dance with me? I’ll cheer you up in no time.”  
  
“I don’t like dancing,” Draco says. “Harry, please will you get me another squashed frog?”  
  
“Erm… yeah, okay,” Harry says, taking the empty shot glasses and heading for the bar, disappointment making his steps slow and heavy.  
  
As he waits, he glances back at the table often, sighing when Edward takes his empty seat and leans towards Draco with a predatory smile. The problem is, he still doesn’t know what Draco is into, and while Edward seems confident in his seduction abilities, Harry has no idea which way this is going to go. The last thing he wants to do is make an idiot of himself by leaping in and confessing all, but doing nothing could result in an infinitely worse outcome.  
  
“Yes, mate?” calls the barman, and Harry tears his eyes away from the table.  
  
“Sorry, can I have another squished frog, please?”  
  
The man laughs and nods. Harry looks back over at the table.  
  
“He doesn’t know, does he?”  
  
Harry’s heart stutters as he meets the barman’s eyes. Brown. Kind, like Murdoch’s. His mind is suddenly alive with excuses, explanations, reasons why, and then he stops.  
  
“No,” he says simply.  
  
The barman gives him a sympathetic smile and it just hurts. He pays for Draco’s shot and turns back to the table, realising with a jolt that Edward is no longer sitting in his seat; in fact, Harry can’t see him anywhere.  
  
“Where’s your friend?” Harry asks, probably not very casually.  
  
Draco takes the shot glass and drains it with one flick of his wrist. “He tried to grab me, so I told him exactly how he should go and fuck himself,” he says.  
  
Harry sits down quickly and stares at him, checking for injuries and suddenly feeling a lot less drunk.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
Draco nods slowly. “He didn’t get anywhere. He’s gone now.”  
  
“I’m sorry I left, I thought you were… are you sure you’re okay?” Harry says, and as he speaks the most disgusting pain flares behind one eye, throbbing in time to the music and making him swear under his breath. The lights aren’t helping and nor is the barman, who is now watching them with the relish of someone enjoying their favourite soap opera.  
  
“He fucked up my buttons,” Draco says darkly, opening his hand and showing Harry four tiny seashell buttons, each still attached to a short length of dark thread.  
  
Puzzled, Harry looks at them for a moment, and then at the slight gape in Draco’s shirt where the two pieces of fabric are no longer being held together. The sliver of pale skin seems to glow in the whirling lights and Harry looks at it for a little bit too long.  
  
“I’m going home,” Draco says suddenly, getting to his feet and taking a moment to steady himself. He picks up his coat and briefcase. “Are you coming?”  
  
Harry freezes. “Am I coming where?”  
  
Draco arches an eyebrow and pokes Harry with his foot. “Look,” he says, very deliberately. “If you tell anyone I will have you killed, but I’m a bit dodgy at Apparating when I’ve had a drink.”  
  
“And you didn’t think to tell me that before the last one?” Harry asks.  
  
“Well, I didn’t know what I was doing… I was drunk,” Draco says, as though this makes perfect sense. “Just… give me a hand with this and if you want, I’ll never bother you again.”  
  
Harry forces a smile, breathing deeply against the ache in his chest. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret in the morning,” he says lightly.  
  
Draco looks at him for long seconds, mouth twitching as though he desperately wants to say something but is forcing himself to think better of it.  
  
Out in the alleyway, he breaks the silence only to whisper his address but laces their fingers together for the jump. Harry holds his breath, letting it out seconds later in a neat, cream-coloured room that smells of seagrass and open fires. Draco wobbles slightly and Harry catches him with a hand against his waist, still looking around at the worn wooden floors and the basket full of logs and the colourful stained glass in every window and door.  
  
“This is nice,” he says absently.  
  
Draco pulls him into a hug and he is so startled that for several seconds he just stands there with his arms at his sides. Draco doesn’t seem to mind; he grips Harry’s back with strong fingers and rests his head on Harry’s shoulder, but he seems to sigh with relief when Harry finally gathers himself and wraps his arms around him, absorbing his sharp scent and his warmth into every fibre of his body.  
  
“You’re my best friend, Harry,” he whispers, voice travelling straight down Harry’s spine. “Don’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Okay,” Harry manages, head still pounding as Draco steps back and heads for the stairs.  
  
When he is out of sight, Harry looks at his wand stupidly.  _Perhaps not_ , he thinks, putting it away and letting himself out of Draco’s flat, locking the door behind him and walking slowly through the dark streets back to Grimmauld Place. He wonders if any of this will make more sense in the morning, and if the pizza place is still open.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Eighth of December**  – a stripy teapot  
  
  
  
“I’m never drinking again,” Harry tells Murdoch as they walk slowly down the hill towards Garrett’s.  
  
It’s almost ten in the morning and the day is pleasant, with bright, pale sunshine and a cool, earth-scented breeze, but Harry feels as though he has just been raised from the dead. This time, his hangover potion has been almost entirely ineffective, and the quizzing he had received from Seddon on his progress only seems to have made his headache intensify. After satisfying her with some flannel about blueprints and the need for more research, he had pushed memos around on his desk for a minute or two and then escaped to Blackwell.  
  
Murdoch bounces, ears flapping and tail lashing.  
  
“I know,” Harry says. “But that’s it for me, at least until the new year. What we need now is some bacon, some caffeine, and some not thinking about the ridiculous things we said to Draco last night.”  
  
Murdoch pauses to chew lightly on the bottom of Harry’s coat, and he relents.  
  
“Fine, the things _I_  said. I’m sure you were a complete delight for Ron and Hermione.”  
  
Harry sighs, pounding head full of half-smiles and seashell buttons and a hug so tight and unexpected that he can almost still feel it. He’s so, so fucked, and the only saving grace is that he won’t have to face Draco today. Of course, the reason he won’t have to see Draco makes him feel scrubbed raw inside, but at least he won’t have to…  
  
… see him.  
  
Harry stops at the bottom of the hill and freezes. The front door of Garrett’s is wide open, and standing on the pavement outside, chatting away with Gladys, is Draco.  
  
“No,” Harry sighs, looking at them and then down at Murdoch, who is already straining on his lead to get to his friends. When he starts barking, they both turn. “Traitor,” Harry mutters.  
  
“There you are, love—I’ve just put the kettle on,” Gladys calls. “You don’t half look delicate.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Harry assures, hurrying across the road to join them before she shouts anything else for the whole town to hear. He suspects she has no idea how loud her voice is or how much it is hurting his head, but he’s not about to make his day worse by upsetting an old lady.  
  
“Well, if you say so,” Gladys says dubiously. “Go on, get inside, I’ll bring you a cuppa when it’s ready.”  
  
As she turns away, Harry looks at Draco, only to find him looking right back. Already set off balance, he smiles awkwardly and hurries into the shop. Draco looks about as rough as he feels, and he doesn’t know whether that should make him feel better or worse. The scent of lemons is stronger than usual, catching Harry’s nostrils and taking him back to his own shower this morning, when everything was hot and harsh and vigorous and he had scrubbed himself under scalding water until his skin was sore.  
  
“You’ve got the strangest look on your face,” Draco says.  
  
Harry takes a moment to fully erase the words ‘I was wondering about you in the shower’ and then shrugs.  
  
“Just zoned out. Draco, you do know you don’t have to be here, don’t you?” he says, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. “I mean… you’re not on the case any more. You can do anything you want.”  
  
Draco scowls, perching on one of the round tables and folding his arms. “It may have escaped your notice, Potter, but I don’t have anything to do,” he says flatly. “I am rather without purpose.”  
  
“‘Potter’? Really?” Harry says, eyebrow shooting up and sending pain pulsing between his temples.  
  
Draco sighs and allows Murdoch to sniff his trousers. “Sorry. I have the most horrendous headache and I bruised my hand on that idiot’s face,” he says, inspecting his knuckles with narrowed eyes.  
  
“You punched him?” Harry says, astonished. “How did I miss that?”  
  
“It was very loud in there. You were at the bar getting me one of those awful green things.” Draco shudders. “Those were very ill-advised.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know, you drank mine,” Harry says. “You probably did me a favour.”  
  
Draco grants him a rueful smile and then winces when Murdoch nudges his injured hand in the hope of strokes.  
  
“I haven’t hit anyone in about twenty years,” he says. “Now I remember why.”  
  
Harry pulls up a creaky chair and smiles at the floor. “Do you remember when—?”  
  
“Yes,” Draco says firmly. “And I hope her hand hurt like hell.”  
  
Harry looks up at him, surprised by his vehemence. “Really?”  
  
“Yes. I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it but it really fucking hurt. You know, when I asked her to forgive me all those years later, she asked me if I forgave her for that punch.” Draco smiles. “I said no. She seemed pleased.”  
  
“I didn’t know that,” Harry says, suddenly wishing he could hug Hermione. Then again, the thought of hugging anyone right now is making him feel rather fraught. “Why don’t you heal your hand?” he asks, the words coming out in a rush.  
  
Draco shifts uncomfortably. “I will. It’s just that—and if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you—I have trouble controlling my magic when I’ve had a drink.”  
  
Suddenly finding himself in a dark alley behind a noisy club, Harry catches his breath. If Draco doesn’t remember telling him this exact thing once before, chances are he doesn’t remember hugging him in the middle of his living room, either, and Harry has no idea whether to feel relieved or disappointed.  
  
“I’ll fix it for you, if you like?” he offers, just as Gladys bustles through the door.  
  
“There’s plenty to fix in here,” she says, setting a wooden tea tray on an empty table and looking around. “Probably got damp and all sorts after all this time.”  
  
“Thank you,” Harry says, surprised and delighted when she hands each of them a bacon sandwich and then pours out two steaming cups of tea from a fat, stripy pot.  
  
“Thank you, Gladys,” Draco says gravely.  
  
“I saw you liked my bakewells. I was going to bring you one, but Bob had them all before I could put one aside,” Gladys sighs. “Speaking of Bob, he said he saw you at the town hall. Doing a thorough job, aren’t you?”  
  
Harry nods, hurrying to swallow a mouthful of delicious smoked bacon and soft white bread.  
  
“Research is very important in the property development… er… game,” he says.  
  
Somewhere to his right, Draco makes an unhelpful sound of amusement. Fortunately, Gladys doesn’t seem to notice.  
  
“What about all that spooky stuff? Did you find anything out?” she asks.  
  
“Murder and vengeful spirits walking abroad seems to be the most popular theory,” Draco says, and then: “Do you know, I think this is the best cup of tea I have ever had.”  
  
Harry sips his tea. It’s very good, he has to admit, but he’s been making Draco tea for years and the remark does sting a little bit.  
  
Gladys beams. “Bless you. As for the rest—I’ve been living next door for fifty years. You’d think I’d remember someone getting  _murdered_.”  
  
“It’s just a bit of local colour, I suppose,” Harry says, warming his hands on his cup. “I grew up in a little town like this and all the kids said that the park keeper was keeping dead bodies in his lawnmower.”  
  
“Was he?” Draco asks, and Harry can’t quite tell if it’s a serious question.  
  
“Never had it confirmed or denied,” Harry says, and Gladys cackles. “Murdoch, sit down. You’ve had your breakfast and you’re not having mine.”  
  
“Ooh, that reminds me,” Gladys says. She fishes in her apron pocket and hands Harry a plastic tub. “It’s just a bit of beef stew left over from Sunday. I thought you might come back.”  
  
Warmed by her kindness, Harry grins. “He’ll love that.  _Later_ , though,” he says firmly, and the daft dog flops onto his side, tail flapping. “You’re spoiling us, Gladys, we won’t want to leave.”  
  
“Good,” she says, tucking her hands into her apron. “It’ll make a lovely home, you know. Just needs a bit of work. You could even open the tea shop—give Mike a run for his money.”  
  
Gladys’s mouth twists into a crafty smile, and she turns to go.  
  
“Drop the pot round before you go, boys,” she says, and leaves, slamming the door behind her.  
  
“Why do I feel like I live here already?” Draco asks.  
  
Harry laughs. “I don’t know. I suppose the people here are just—did you see that?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Harry puts down his cup and rises slowly. Putting a finger to his lips, he walks over to the corner nearest the kitchen door, eyes fixed on a dark shadow that has no business being there. The only light in the room is coming from the dusty window, and it is barely strong enough to create any shadow, let alone one in such a sheltered corner.  
  
“There’s something here,” Harry whispers, drawing his wand and keeping his eyes on the shadow.  
  
When something crashes to the floor behind him, he whips around, wand poised.  
  
“There’s nothing,” Draco says quietly, already crouching in the corner and examining the pieces of a broken vase.  
  
Puzzled, Harry turns back to the kitchen door. The shadow has disappeared.  
  
“Did you see it?” he asks, and Draco nods.  
  
“I don’t know what it was, but I have a feeling it knocked over that vase to distract you,” he says. “Perhaps you were getting too close.”  
  
Harry scans the room slowly. The little burst of excitement has made all the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and his blood is racing in his veins. There’s something here, and even if it has managed to hide from him, he has seen it now. He turns to Draco, wishing he could remember the last time he felt so thrilled about a mission.  
  
“It’s not dark and it’s not a wizard,” he says, picking up the blueprints and shoving them into Draco’s hands. “I have looked in every fucking crevice of this place and there is nowhere for a human being to hide from me. What if it’s a magical creature?”  
  
“A non-dark magical creature that is smaller than a person that has managed to terrify a whole town for at least two decades?” Draco says, lifting an eyebrow.  
  
“Why not? What if it’s not trying to scare anyone—what if it just lives here?”  
  
Draco looks around, eyes following the cobweb-covered cornices. “Okay,” he says at last. “If a magical creature lives here, what’s your next move?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “Find it.”  
  
“And then…?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry sighs. “Just because not it’s dark doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Then again, it might need some help. I’ll go down to Magical Creatures and see if Samreen can send an expert.”  
  
“Now?” Draco asks, rubbing his injured hand and looking rather disappointed.  
  
Harry hides a smile. “No. First, I’m going to fix that before you make it worse.”  
  
“If you must,” Draco says, settling himself back on the table and pulling his feet up. His shoes are still on, but Harry thinks it’s only a matter of time. And cleaning.  
  
“Keep still. And when I’ve done this, we’re going to sit very quietly and wait,” Harry says.  
  
Draco draws his wand. “And if it comes back?”  
  
Harry touches his wand to the back of Draco’s hand, excitement crackling in his veins.  
  
“I have no idea.”


	9. Chapter Nine

**Ninth of December**  – a duck  
  
  
  
When the mysterious creature fails to show itself, Harry is disappointed but quite happy to return Gladys’s tea tray and Apparate back to Grimmauld Place with Murdoch. He remains excited by the potential discovery but six hours sitting beside Draco in silent, expectant darkness is quite enough of a test of his sanity for one day. With a lot of ‘help’ from Murdoch, he installs himself in his favourite armchair by the fire and spends the evening scouring books on magical animals until his eyes start to close of their own accord.  
  
He stirs, seemingly seconds later, to find that the fire has burned down to embers and his alarm clock is blaring defiantly from several floors above. Murdoch, draped across his lap, is snoring happily and seems to have chewed the corner of  _‘Lives in the Dark – A Guide to Shadow-Loving Beings’_.  
  
“I borrowed that from work,” he mumbles, poking Murdoch, who twitches an ear in response. “You’re not supposed to chew things any more—you’re a grown-up.”  
  
This time, Murdoch peers up at him and he gives the daft dog a reluctant smile.  
  
“It’s alright, I haven’t figured it out yet, either. Get down, idiot, you weigh a ton.”  
  
With Murdoch on the floor and looking around for breakfast, Harry heaves himself out of the chair, grimacing as he stretches and hears several bones click into place.  
  
“I’m old,” he tells Murdoch. “Too old to sleep in a chair, anyway.”  
  
Deciding not to dwell on that thought, he heads upstairs to the shower, forcing a semi-vigorous sort of jog in an attempt to prove to himself that he is, at the very least, a semi-vigorous sort of person. The results are somewhat inconclusive, but what is clear is that he is not a talented researcher, and that he is going to have to attempt a full-on charm offensive for the administrator of the Magical Creatures department.  
  
He knows he is supposed to send an official memo request through the system and wait, but he also knows that Samreen likes him, and a visit along with her favourite coffee might just make all the difference.  
  
“Hello, Murdoch!” she cries, leaning over her desk to ruffle his ears the moment they enter the office, and Harry is reminded that while she does have a soft spot for him, she  _adores_  the daft dog. “Hi, Harry,” she adds after a moment. “You look…” She pauses. Frowns. “Tired.”  
  
“Thanks, Sam. You know, it’s the boost to my self-esteem that keeps me coming back here.”  
  
She laughs delightedly, and several people look up from their manic activity at the sound.  
  
“I’m sorry. I’ve just been worried about you,” she says. She gathers her heavy dark hair and leans forward, dropping her voice. “I heard about Draco. How are you taking it?”  
  
Something in her tone catches at Harry and he frowns. “Don’t you mean ‘how is he taking it’?”  
  
Samreen shrugs. “Well, yeah, but it can’t be easy for you. Your partner losing his job.”  
  
“He wasn’t really my partner,” Harry says.  
  
“Well, whatever word you want to use. Partner, boyfriend, significant entity…” She regards him with large dark eyes. “It’s the curse again, isn’t it?”  
  
“Samreen, you have lost the plot,” Harry says, ignoring the flush climbing up the back of his neck. “Fortunately, I have brought you this, which might help.”  
  
He holds out the paper cup and she takes it with a delighted smile. “Double espresso?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“What do you need?”  
  
“An expert. I’ve got something living in an abandoned shop in a Muggle area and I want someone to come and tell me what it is,” Harry says, flashing his best smile and adding, “Please.”  
  
“Harry, anything but that,” she groans. “Everyone is booked up.”  
  
“I just need a couple of hours,” Harry tries. “Just an ID. I’ll deal with the rest.”  
  
Samreen wrinkles her nose and leafs through an enormous diary that seems to be packed with magical notes of all colours, textures, and in one case, the scent of oranges.  
  
“I’ve got nothing, I’m so sorry. I’d dearly love to jump you to the front of the queue, and not just because you bring me coffee, but there’s nothing I can do for…” She runs a slender finger down the current page. “Two weeks.”  
  
Harry sighs. “Well, write me in for that, please. I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.”  
  
Samreen nods and scribbles an entry in red ink. “Sorry. You know, you could always put a request through Seddon. She might be able to bring someone in from the outside.”  
  
Harry grimaces. “Yeah, I’m trying not to speak to her at the moment if I don’t have to.”  
  
“Shit, Harry, that was a really stupid thing to say. Good going, Samreen,” she scolds herself and then brightens. “Do you want to have a go on the Christmas duck?”  
  
“It’s fine, don’t… did you say Christmas duck?”  
  
“Yeah! Dexter’s kids made it for the office—it’s mad.”  
  
Samreen gets up and motions for Harry to follow her. On an empty desk in the centre of the office sits one of the strangest things Harry has ever seen, which he supposes is really saying something. The duck, made from what looks to be papier mache and glued-on feathers, is almost three feet tall, standing on thick orange legs and disproportionately large webbed feet. Its eyes, made from little black beads, are far too close together, giving it a vaguely thuggish air, and on top of its head sits a tall, red santa hat with a glittery bell.  
  
Harry stares at it, bewildered. “Are Dexter’s kids… okay?”  
  
Samreen giggles. “No. They’re creative,” she says, and this time Harry laughs, too.  
  
“So, what do I do?”  
  
“You say ‘all hail the Christmas duck’ and then you pull on its tail and an egg falls out,” she says.  
  
“Why do I feel like I’ve just stepped into another dimension?”  
  
“Harry, this office is full of people who have devoted their lives to running around after every scuttling, creeping or flying thing they see. It basically is another dimension. Just pull the duck’s tail.”  
  
“Alright. All hail the Christmas duck,” Harry says solemnly and pulls the duck’s tail. A second later, a sparkling egg falls to the desk and rolls towards him. He catches it.  
  
“Break it,” instructs Samreen.  
  
Harry taps the egg on the desk and it falls apart to reveal a handful of sweets and a rolled-up piece of parchment. He smooths it out and reads aloud.  
  
“Today is a day for action. Take steps to make sure all your dreams come true.”  
  
“That’s a good one,” she says. “Mine told me I was going to fall down in front of a crowd of people.”  
  
Harry laughs. “Has it come true yet?”  
  
“No, but there’s still time. Weird, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, you could say that,” Harry says. He stares at the duck, sucking on a lemon drop and offering one to Samreen. The duck stares back at him with promises of retribution.  
  
“Thanks. I bet your office hasn’t got a massive duck that craps fortune cookie wisdom,” she says.  
  
Harry has to agree that it does not. Cheered by Samreen and her duck, he heads back to the Auror Department, crunching his lemon drop as the lift whisks him this way and that and pushing Murdoch’s nose out of his pocket at regular intervals.  
  
“You don’t want a boiled sweet, idiot, and you definitely don’t want the plastic wrapper it comes in,” Harry tells him, stepping out of the lift and almost walking straight into Ron.  
  
“There you are,” he says, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “You’re a hard man to get hold of at the moment.”  
  
“Sorry, I’ve been up north most of the week, trying to figure out this teashop thing,” Harry says, then pauses, leaning towards Ron and sniffing the air. “You smell like mulled wine. Is there a party going on that I don’t know about?”  
  
Ron laughs and sniffs at his sleeve. “No, it’s just incest. Christmas punch.”  
  
“Incense?” Harry suggests, and Ron reddens and nods.  
  
“Yeah. That. Collier brought all these sticks in, and—bloody hell, it’s not that bad! I think they smell quite festive.”  
  
“Sorry,” Harry says, trying for a more neutral expression. “It’s not that. It’s just you mentioned Collier and I remembered I had a few things to ask you about that incident with the cloaked broomsticks.”  
  
“I thought you might,” Ron says. “But when I brought Murdoch back for you yesterday morning, you just took him and ran off. Thought you might be mad at me, actually.”  
  
“No,” Harry says firmly. “Draco told me what happened. It’s not your fault.”  
  
Ron sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “It was a judgement call. I took the risk, we caught the guy. I never meant to get Q in trouble, I hope you know that.”  
  
“I know,” Harry says, reaching instinctively for Murdoch and stroking his head. “I’m not blaming anyone but Seddon and neither is Draco.”  
  
Ron shifts uncomfortably. “About that.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I had a meeting with her this morning—just admin stuff, you know. I mentioned the thing about Q and the broomsticks and she lost her rag. As much as she does, you know… still all sweetness and light on the outside but I could tell she was raging. She told me to stay out of it, and that it would be best if I ‘stuck to moving my little counters around’,” Ron says, nostrils flaring with irritation.  
  
Harry shakes his head. “It was good of you to try. You know, she reminds me more of Umbridge every day.”  
  
Ron shudders. “Maybe old Q’s best out of it.”  
  
Harry smiles at his friend, touched by the easy affection and the attempts to help Draco, however pointless they might be.  
  
“I’d better go. He’s probably already at the teashop, waiting for me.”  
  
One ginger eyebrow flickers, but Ron says nothing.  
  
“Friday,” Harry promises.  
  
“Indeed,” Ron agrees, and steps into the lift.  
  
**~*~**  
  
“Back again?” Gladys says when Harry and Murdoch arrive at Garrett’s, having struggled over the hill against a wall of rain and wind.  
  
“Hi, Gladys,” Harry says breathlessly, reaching for the door handle.  
  
“I’ll get the kettle on.”  
  
“You don’t have to do that,” Harry protests, but she just looks at him as though he’s mad.  
  
“You don’t have any electricity. I won’t have you freezing to death on my watch,” she says, and she is back inside her house before Harry can reply.  
  
Shrugging, he steps inside and closes the door on the wind. When his eyes adjust to the gloom, he can’t help but smile at what he sees. Draco, apparently back in mad scientist mode, is crouching on the dusty floor, bent at the waist so that he can press his eyeglass against a crack in the skirting board. One hand is braced against the wall, fingers splayed into a spider shape, while the other scribbles away on a notepad beside him.  
  
“Making yourself at home?” Harry asks, and Draco turns to look at him, eyeglass still firmly in place.  
  
“It hasn’t appeared again, but I think I can hear it in the walls,” he says, one visible eye bright with excitement.  
  
“What does it sound like?”  
  
“Come and listen,” Draco says, and Harry releases Murdoch so that he can scramble onto the floor next to Draco and take the instrument he is holding out.  
  
He places it against the wall and holds his breath.  
  
“Just wait a few seconds,” Draco whispers, leaning close enough to make Harry shiver. “It’ll come. It’s a sort of crackling sound.”  
  
Harry waits, attention pulled between the wall and the fact that Draco’s hand is touching his on the cold floor. Finally, though, he hears it: a soft rustle and a clack-clack-clack, whooshing past his ear, trailing away and then whooshing back, making his skin tingle and his heart race.  
  
“Can you hear it?” Draco whispers, and he nods.  
  
“It’s here… right behind the wall,” Harry says, grinning. Ear still pressed against the instrument, he turns his eyes to Draco. “How long have you been listening to it?”  
  
“I’ve been here since eight,” Draco says, taking out his eyeglass and sitting up straight. “I’m not sleeping very well and I thought I might as well make myself useful.  
  
Harry just nods, opting not to address his defensive tone. “I slept in a chair last night.”  
  
Draco looks alarmed. “Why on earth would you do that?”  
  
“It was an accident,” Harry says. “I was looking through all my books, trying to find out something about our friend in the wall, here, but I fell asleep. And the Murdoch fell asleep on me.”  
  
“That’s terribly rude of you, Murder Face,” Draco says, and Murdoch wags his tail. “It’s almost a shame the Malfoy library doesn’t exist any more. I’m sure we’d have found it in there.”  
  
“Do you ever miss it?” Harry asks, curiosity getting the better of him. “The Manor, I mean?”  
  
“No. Too many bad memories,” Draco says, scratching at his left forearm and revealing an inch or so of the faded Mark.  
  
Harry looks at it for a moment too long and then turns back to the wall. “Sorry.”  
  
“I never liked it before all that, to be honest,” Draco says. “It was always too big and quiet to feel comfortable in. I’m much happier in my flat.”  
  
“Your flat is really nice,” Harry says, smiling when the whooshing and crackling starts up again.  
  
“How would you know?” Draco asks, and then the door flies open, admitting Gladys and her tray.  
  
“Here you are, boys,” she says, smiling down at them. “Oh, I do hope you buy it. Just think, I could bake cakes for you to sell, and Serena—she’s Sue’s niece, you know, from the haberdasher’s—she’s looking for a Saturday job. What are you listening to there, love? I hope you can’t hear my singing.”  
  
“Not yet,” Harry says, attempting to process the rest of her words.  
  
“I heard you earlier,” Draco says. “‘Land of Hope and Glory’, wasn’t it?”  
  
“‘I Saw Three Ships’, love,” Gladys says, disappointed, and then laughs. “Poor old Bob; he doesn’t have the benefit of a wall. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. See you later for the teapot.”  
  
“Was it terrible?” Harry asks, picking up his cup as she closes the door behind her.  
  
Draco doesn’t answer for a moment, just stares at him. “How do you know what my flat is like?”  
  
Harry’s stomach tips nastily. He grips his teacup until his skin begins to burn. He’s going to have to say it; there’s no other way.  
  
“On Monday night, you… well, you asked me to help you get home and you gave me your address,” he says, all in a rush. “I was only there for a minute. We were in your living room and then you went to bed and I went home. It wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t mention it because you didn’t remember and I didn’t want to embarrass you.”  
  
“You were in my flat,” Draco says.  
  
“Yeah, but, you know… consensually,” Harry says, and then has to resist the urge to throw tea in his face.  
  
Draco frowns. “I thought that was a dream.”  
  
“Well, I…” Harry pauses. “The bit where I stood in your living room and said, ‘This is nice’—that part was real. I’m afraid the rest is all you.”  
  
Draco gazes at him, mouth flickering at one corner. To Harry’s astonishment, he pulls himself up onto hands and knees and crawls slowly towards him, eyes bright with an intensity that tangles Harry into knots. As the distance between them grows shorter, his heart speeds and he leans closer, just as he realises that Draco is not looking at him but at something just above his right ear. Confused and unhelpfully turned on, Harry goes to look but Draco shakes his head.  
  
“Don’t move,” he whispers.  
  
“What is it?” he asks, keeping perfectly still and attempting to even out his breathing.  
  
“I don’t know,” Draco says, and then there is a crackling sound and a sigh. “It’s gone.”  
  
“Was it the thing from the walls?” Harry asks, turning to look at empty air.  
  
“It was so small. Tiny, like a conker,” Draco says, cupping his hands to illustrate. “It just hovered for a moment and then it disappeared.”  
  
“Are you sure it wasn’t a conker?” Harry asks weakly.  
  
Draco gives him an odd look. “It’s December, Harry. Besides, it was black. And it was  _hovering_.”  
  
“Maybe it was a magical hovering conker,” Harry says, unable to shake away his irritation. “Maybe it was… oh.”  
  
Harry falls silent as something dark and spiky materialises on the wall next to his head. As it moves closer, he realises that it isn’t black at all, but an iridescent petrol blue, tiny and covered in little prickles.  
  
“Like a conker  _shell_ ,” he says, understanding now. “A horse chestnut case. With the points.”  
  
“That’s what I meant,” Draco says, leaning forward as the little thing drops onto Harry’s knee.  
  
“Ow,” he hisses, surprised but desperate not to move and frighten the bizarre creature.  
  
Or provoke it, he supposes. Just because something is small, does not mean it isn’t dangerous.  
  
“Perhaps we should try to trap it,” Draco says quietly. “Just for identification purposes.”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to ask just how Draco proposes he do that when something shoots out of the little ball of spikes and he leans back instinctively. Mind racing, he runs down a mental list of potential threats – it could be a poison dart, a fang, a venom quill…  
  
“It’s an eye,” Draco says, and he sounds amused. “It’s just an eye.”  
  
Uncertain, Harry sits up slowly. The little creature shifts position on his thigh, prickling his skin and making him wince. Deciding not to think about the fact that he could already be dying of a rare poison, he peers down at it and lets out a surprised huff of breath. The creature swivels its stick-like protrusion and Harry finds himself being peered at by a perfectly spherical eye.  
  
“Well, that’s different,” he says.  
  
The stick on which this rotating eye perches is about the length of the rest of the entire creature all by itself, giving the whole thing a disproportionate, rather awkward appearance. Harry has no idea what to do with it, but the creature seems purposeful, scanning him with its little round eye and then turning to regard Draco, all the while sticking its pointy little spikes into Harry’s leg.  
  
“It doesn’t seem dangerous,” he admits. “How could  _this_  make all those banging noises Gladys talked about?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Draco says. “Unless… when we saw that shadow yesterday, it was quite large. Two or three feet across, would you say?”  
  
Harry nods. “Do you think he’s a shapeshifter?”  
  
“No.” Draco scrutinises the little ball of spikes. “I think he’s a scout.”  
  
“He’s going to struggle tying knots with no hands,” Harry says, and the look Draco gives him almost makes up for the confused ache in his chest.  
  
“Funny. I think he’s been sent to see what we’re up to. We’ve been here a few days now, which is far more than anyone else has managed in a long time.”  
  
Slowly, Harry turns to look at the wall. “So, there’s more of them. Maybe lots more.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
Harry gazes at the little creature on his knee. It gazes right back, then retracts the eye and the stick completely, bounces against the wall and disappears. He grabs the listening device and strains to hear the sound of crackling and whooshing, but there is only silence.  
  
He sighs. “Shame we didn’t get a photograph.”  
  
“This will have to do,” Draco says, frowning and sketching a rough shape in his notebook.  
  
When he hands it to Harry, he laughs. “You know, it’s reassuring to know that you’re not good at everything.  
  
“It might be good enough for an expert to recognise,” Draco says, picking up his teacup. He meets Harry’s eyes and grants him an odd little smile. “Harry, I am not good at all sorts of things.”  
  
“Yeah, you make a terrible cup of tea,” Harry lies.  
  
Draco picks up his notepad and throws it at him.  
  
Harry throws it back.  
  
Murdoch flops down between them and sighs.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Tenth of December**  – an umbrella  
  
  
  
Harry yanks open each of his desk drawers in turn, rifling through the contents and hardly swearing at all when he slashes his finger open with a stray throwing knife. He’s so pleased with himself for coming up with a solution to the magical-creature-expert problem that he just closes his fist around the throbbing finger and continues to search with his undamaged hand.  
  
Really, he should have thought of it much sooner. Rolf Scamander is Luna’s husband and as such, basically part of his extended Hogwarts family. He’s a very busy man, but it has to be worth an ask, and if he can only find a sheet of letterheaded parchment with the Ministry logo on it, he can fire off his request before Draco has had time to visit the Breakfast Barrel and sink his teeth into another one of Gladys’s bakewell tarts.  
  
Unfortunately, he is being aided in his task by Murdoch, who has decided that the whole venture is a game and is pulling things out of drawers at random and strewing them around the office.  
  
“Murdo, leave the Auror Handbook alone,” Harry says distractedly, examining a long metal skewer that rather reinforces his decision not to empty the drawers by magic.  
  
“I’d say let him have it, it’s not much of a read,” says someone female and decidedly Irish.  
  
Harry straightens up. “Collier… hi.”  
  
She follows his eyes down to her left leg and smiles. “It’s fine. It’s been fine for weeks.” She frowns. “You’re not, though… you’re bleeding everywhere.”  
  
Harry stares at his finger, surprised to see blood now covering his fist and dripping onto his robes.  
  
“Right,” he says, staring for a moment longer before gathering himself and spelling the blood away. He wraps the finger in a healing charm that stings like buggery-fuck but knits the cut edges of skin back together in a matter of seconds.  
  
“I’m sorry about what happened with Q,” Collier says suddenly.  
  
“You all call him that, don’t you?” Harry asks, amused in spite of everything.  
  
“In our team we do, yeah,” Collier says. “Ron says it’s something to do with a man called James Bond, but I haven’t ever asked him who that is.”  
  
“Well, don’t, unless you have a lot of time to spare. He’s in about thirty films and Ron’s got them all.”  
  
Collier grins, revealing white teeth with pointed canines. “Good to know. Listen,” she says, expression turning serious, “Seddon’s looking for you. Thought you might like a head’s-up.”  
  
“Thanks,” Harry says, giving her a grateful smile. “I’ll get moving as soon as I find this bloody letterheaded paper.”  
  
Collier pauses, already halfway into the corridor. “The paper that’s on Q’s desk, there?”  
  
Harry looks, groans, and grabs the paper from the otherwise empty desk. He turns to thank Collier, but she has already disappeared from view.  
  
“Come on, Murdo,” he says, grabbing the dog’s lead and hurriedly spelling everything back into his desk drawers.  
  
When he hears footsteps in the corridor, he picks up Murdoch, flings powder into the fire and launches them both into the Floo Network before he can change his mind. The last thing he needs right now is Seddon, and perhaps running away from his boss should make him at least consider his life choices, but none of that is going to happen in the next few minutes. He has things to do.  
  
After tumbling out of the Leaky Cauldron’s fireplace and ordering himself a steaming mug of Butterbeer, Harry sits at a corner table with Murdoch at his feet and writes his letter with an ancient quill borrowed from Tom the barman.  
  
_Dear Rolf_ , he writes.  
  
_I hope you’re well. We missed you at the Christmas meal but Luna told us you had to stay in Kazakhstan and to be honest, her stories were so brilliant that we all felt like we were there with you. I know you’re very busy now you’re back but I was hoping you could do me a favour. I’m on a mission with a creature I can’t find in any of my books. What I really need is a quick ID and then I can take it from there. If you could come and have a look when you’ve got a moment, I would seriously owe you one._  
  
_We’re at Garrett’s Tea Rooms in Blackwell-in-the Fold. It’s a Muggle place so we’re not on the Floo Network, but there is a little wood nearby that’s suitable for Apparating into. I totally understand if you don’t have time, just let me know._  
  
_All the best,_  
  
_Harry._  
  
As the ink on the letter dries, Harry rummages in his coat pockets for change to pay for his drink. When his fingers brush against folded paper, he fishes out Draco’s sketch and smiles to himself. Impulsively, he stuffs it into the envelope along with the letter, deciding not to leave a comment and instead allow Rolf to draw his own conclusions. After all, he’s married to Luna; he’s probably used to it by now.  
  
Feeling cautiously optimistic, he spells open the wall and makes it approximately ten paces into Diagon Alley before the heavens open, dumping heavy, freezing rain onto the shoppers and stalls in a theatrical crash. Harry hesitates, unsure if he should make a run for the post office or duck into the nearest shop along with almost everyone else. Finally, he tucks the letter inside his coat and drags Murdoch into the doorway of Flourish and Blotts, where several other shoppers are shivering and attempting to charm themselves dry.  
  
“Umbrella charm’s no good against this,” says a man with a raspy voice.  
  
“No,” Harry says, pulling Murdoch back from a rapidly growing puddle. “Come here.”  
  
With the daft dog sulking at his feet, he pulls out his wand and spells himself dry. His clothes and hair lose their moisture in an instant, but the taste of the rain remains on Harry’s tongue, alive with the static of an imminent storm. He chews on his lip and watches the water sweep the cobbles. Breathes in the scents of spicy food and damp clothes, feeling strangely invigorated.  
  
“Umbrella charms won’t keep you dry in this,” says the man, and Harry turns.  
  
“Are you talking to me?”  
  
“Maybe,” the man says mysteriously. One eye is covered with a patch and the other glitters up at Harry with interest. “You’re Harry Potter.”  
  
“Yes,” Harry says, finally noticing the well-stocked cart and wanting to laugh. “Are you, by any chance, trying to sell me an umbrella?”  
  
The man grants him a sly grin. “This isn’t just any umbrella, Mr Potter. This is an um- _brilliant_. It’s fully waterproof, hail-resistant, guaranteed not to turn inside out in winds up to seventy miles per hour,  _and_ it’s got a heated handle.”  
  
His expression is so earnest that this time, Harry does laugh. “Anything else?”  
  
“Comes in sixteen colours,” the man says, indicating his cart. “Two Galleons. If you buy more than one, I’ll throw in a pair of self-warming gloves. Red or Green. No better deal in town.”  
  
At Harry’s feet, Murdoch barks, and the decision is made.  
  
“Go on, then,” Harry says, fishes four Galleons out of his pocket. “I’ll have a blue one and a black one.”  
  
The man reaches for his umbrellas, delighted. “And what colour your gloves?”  
  
“Dealer’s choice,” Harry says.  
  
The man hands him his purchases and grins. “Look at that, ladies and gentlemen,” he calls to the shivering masses. “Um-brilliant umbrellas approved by Harry Potter himself!”  
  
“Good luck with that,” he says, sticking the black umbrella under his arm and opening the blue one before stepping out into the driving rain.  
  
He’s not sure what he expected, but by the time he is halfway through the Christmas market, it’s clear that the man was not exaggerating about his product. Harry’s new umbrella holds up wonderfully against the wind and the rain, and the heated handle is a revelation. When he reaches the post office, he is rather sorry to have to fold it up, and he thinks he may have found the perfect Christmas present for Draco.  
  
They have exchanged gifts for several years now, always practical and never extravagant. The last thing Harry wants to do is present Draco with something that says, ‘god, I love you, you stupid bastard’, so he sticks to tins of biscuits and little metal tools from incomprehensible catalogues and other things that say, ‘have a festive time of year, appreciated colleague’. Possibly.  
  
This year, he can have an excellent umbrella. A black umbrella because black goes with everything, apparently, and a heated handle to warm perpetually cold fingers. And perhaps the tin of bakewell tart flavoured tea that Harry finds on the way back from the post office. Because it’s tea and bakewell tarts and a good-sized tin for a mad scientist to keep his mad scientist things in.  
  
The gloves from the umbrella man are a nice forest green; perhaps Draco would like those, too, Harry thinks, and then attempts to come to his senses. He should probably stop now, and besides, he hasn’t bought a thing for anyone else yet and Christmas will be upon him in just over two weeks, whether he is ready for it or not. The markets are always reliable, and with the downpour only intensifying, he has most of the stalls to himself.  
  
Over the next hour or so, Harry wanders around under his excellent new umbrella, collecting shiny trinkets and artisan cheeses and knitted scarves as he goes. The stallholders are grateful for his custom after the sudden exodus, and many of them throw in an extra item or a treat for Murdoch, who is soaked through and thrilled with the whole situation. His fur has slicked itself into wet little points, and every time he bumps against Harry’s leg, his trousers soak up cold moisture.  
  
“What is it with you and getting wet?” Harry asks, peering down at Murdoch and attempting to shove a bottle of mead into an already stuffed string bag.  
  
The daft dog just wags his tail, looking up at Harry as though there is no greater joy in the world than following him around the market stalls and jumping in every puddle he comes across. Oh, to be so easily amused, Harry thinks, but when he looks around at the slick cobbles, the decorated shop windows and the coloured lights, blurred and beautiful in the rain, he feels rather content.  
  
Passing Flourish and Blotts on the way back to the Leaky, Harry looks for the man with the eyepatch and finds him now surrounded with customers, umbrella stock severely depleted. He smiles, and the man waves at him with a blue and yellow spotted umbrella.  
  
When he arrives in Blackwell, it is not raining. Surprised, Harry stores away his umbrella and applies a quick charm to hide both of them from Draco before he and Murdoch head over the hill and down to the shop.  
  
Draco is standing in the doorway when he arrives, holding a cup of tea and leaning to inspect Gladys’s front window.  
  
“Have you seen this?” he demands, as soon as Harry is in earshot.  
  
“And good morning to you, too, Draco.”  
  
“I was going to start by asking you where the fuck you’d been all morning, but I don’t think I need to,” Draco says, staring at Harry’s purchases.  
  
“I went to post a letter,” Harry says, and then wrinkles his nose. “I might have got distracted. Anyway, what’s the matter with Gladys’s window?”  
  
“Nothing’s the matter with it. It’s just that now she’s decorated, it makes ours look sad.”  
  
Harry looks at the front of the house next door, which now features several golden reindeer, an enormous wreath on the front door, fake snow on the window and a string of white flashing lights that wraps around every doorframe and drainpipe before trailing right along the gutter. By comparison, Garrett’s looks dark and dingy, all dusty windows and peeling paint.  
  
“We could clean the windows,” Harry suggests. “But they do a good job of blocking the view from the street.”  
  
“Clean windows are incredibly festive,” Draco says drily. “What about one of those trees on a stick? All the other shops have got one.”  
  
“Trees on a what now?” Harry asks, puzzled.  
  
“Look around the corner. Every shop on the town square has a little Christmas tree with lights stuck up above their door. They have them in London, too,” Draco says. “Look, even the library has one.”  
  
Harry looks, understanding now. Joe’s tree is particularly impressive, dressed in violent shades of pink and purple and draped in vaguely demonic red light. Several feet below it, the sign advertising festive story time with Mr Bobble flaps in the wind, and Harry finds himself making a mental note of the relevant times and dates.  
  
“Can you see them now?” Draco asks, and Harry turns back to him.  
  
“Yeah, but I don’t think we can start hammering spikes into the bricks… it’s not like the shop belongs to us,” Harry says, and Draco nods, gripping his cup with both hands.  
  
“No, of course.”  
  
  
“Are you okay?” Harry asks, just as Murdoch slips off his lead and runs towards Draco, shaking cold water all over him and barking delightedly.  
  
“Of course. I think I’ll go down to that little shop with the saws in the window and see if they have any oil lamps,” Draco says, barely seeming to notice that he is wet. “No sign of those pointy little buggers yet this morning. If we’re going to be here for a while, we might as well have some light.”  
  
Harry steps back to allow Draco to stalk past him into the street.  
  
“Er… do you have any…” He lowers his voice. “You know, money that you can use here?”  
  
“Yes, Harry,” he sighs, already walking away with his hands in his coat pockets.  
  
Harry stands outside the shop and watches the wind blowing his hair into angry blond points. He looks up at the shop front, at Gladys’s decorations, at the gloomy café interior where Draco’s instruments and notes scatter the floor and tiny one-eyed creatures hide in the walls. He thinks of his office, empty without its scientist and haunted by the presence of the dreaded Seddon.  
  
Draco doesn’t want to go back to life before Blackwell, of course he doesn’t. Harry looks back down the street just in time to see him pulling open the door of the hardware shop and stepping inside. He’s going to buy oil lanterns, and Harry is going to bloody well help him hang them up.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Eleventh of December**  – a globe  
  
  
  
“There he is—I’m going to ask him.”  
  
At the sound of footsteps and a cry of ‘Serena, don’t!’ Harry turns just in time to see two teenage girls racing towards him, one of whom he recognises and one of whom is wearing a rather world-weary expression.  
  
“It’s Harry, isn’t it?” asks Serena, breath forming clouds in the frigid morning air.  
  
“It is. Are you okay?”  
  
“No,” says Serena’s friend. “She’s wrong in the head.”  
  
Serena calmly gives her the finger. “Can I pet your dog?”  
  
Surprised, Harry looks down at Murdoch and then at the steamed up windows of the Breakfast Barrel. His stomach rumbles.  
  
“Tell you what, why don’t you hold him for me while I nip in and get my breakfast?” he suggests, and Serena beams.  
  
She takes the lead and immediately drops down to Murdoch’s level, pressing her face to his and ruffling his ears.  
  
“You’re such a good boy,” she murmurs. “Mum won’t let me get a dog.”  
  
“Well, they’re a big responsibility,” Harry says, trying to sound like a proper adult. “Murdoch eats everything in sight and he chews all my books.”  
  
“And they crap  _everywhere_ ,” Serena’s friend says with such drama that Harry can’t help smiling.  
  
“I want a dog,” Serena says firmly. “Did you find any ghosts at Garrett’s yet?”  
  
“Afraid not,” Harry says. “But there’s still time. Won’t be a minute.”  
  
The interior of the café is blissfully warm and Harry is tempted to order his breakfast to eat in. Draco’s oil lamps make the dining room at Garrett’s look impressively cosy, but the air is cold enough to necessitate coats and scarves at all times. He can hear Serena and her friend chatting away to Murdoch and doubts they will mind an extra few minutes with the dog while he stuffs himself full of bacon and bread.  
  
“All yours, love,” says the tiny old woman at the counter, moving away to her table with her tea and toasted fruit teacake.  
  
“Thanks, Marcia,” Harry says, and then turns to look at Mike, who is regarding him shrewdly.  
  
“That red-headed woman anything to do with you?” he asks.  
  
Harry frowns. “You’ve lost me.”  
  
“She was in here a few minutes ago. Ordered a full breakfast to take away—”  
  
“No eggs, extra mushrooms,” interrupts Mike’s wife, and he nods.  
  
“Full breakfast, no eggs, extra mushrooms, and then she asked where she could find Garrett’s.”  
  
Baffled, Harry shakes his head. The only red-headed women he knows are Weasleys, and he would be very surprised if one of them had turned up in Blackwell without telling him first. That being said, with his family, all strange things are possible.  
  
“Mike, I have no idea, but I suppose she could be a colleague of ours,” Harry says, now far too intrigued to take a seat, however warm the café might be. “I’ll have two bacon sandwiches and two teas to take away, please.”  
  
“Coming up.” Mike turns away and starts slapping butter onto bread rolls. “We’ve never had so many new people in town, you know.”  
  
“Exciting, isn’t it?” his wife says, grinning. “Makes Blackwell feel all cosmopolitan-like.”  
  
Amused, Harry smiles at her, still smiling when he takes his food, retrieves Murdoch from Serena and walks past the hardware shop, the newsagent and the tiny supermarket, where early morning customers are already scraping their wire baskets from the pile and wandering in for their essentials. Under the clock tower, Craig is sitting in his fluorescent jacket and heavy boots, lost in a book, and on the corner, the butcher waves to Harry from behind a forest of plastic greenery. Blackwell is about as far from cosmopolitan as it is possible to get, but he likes it. He doesn’t think he has ever been waved to by a shopkeeper in all his years in London; the thought of it is rather odd.  
  
As is the sight of the promised red-headed woman, standing on the pavement outside Garrett’s and eating her breakfast out of a polystyrene tray. It seems he is not the only one to think so—Gladys is at her window with her nose almost pressed up against the glass. Uncertain, Harry hangs back for a moment and almost drops his breakfast when Draco appears behind him.  
  
“What kind of Auror reflexes are those? Who on earth is that?”  
  
“I didn’t think I needed Auror reflexes to buy bacon sandwiches,” Harry mutters, knowing that Draco is right and that his awareness needs some serious work. “And I don’t know. I just got here. Where have you been?”  
  
“The little shop. I’ve been trying to work out what those little buggers eat,” Draco says, holding up a plastic bag and looking extremely pleased with himself.  
  
“Good idea,” Harry says, feeling a rush of warmth that is swiftly beaten back by anxiety. “What if she’s from the Ministry?”  
  
Draco lifts an eyebrow. “What if she is? You don’t actually think she’s Seddon in disguise, do you?”  
  
“God, there’s a thought,” Harry mutters.  
  
The woman picks up a sausage from her tray and bites into it, looking up and down the street and appearing to notice Gladys for the first time. She waves and Gladys springs back from the window as though yanked by a string. Amused in spite of his panic, Harry smiles. The woman is short, plump and pretty, dressed in a vibrant mustard-coloured coat and a pair of leather boots. A teal beret sits on top of her red curls, and on her back hangs a patchwork bag. The whole effect is rather dizzying but wonderful, and Harry doubts that Seddon would have the imagination to pull off such a look in her wildest dreams.  
  
Just as he allows himself to relax, the woman’s eyes narrow and she takes a couple of steps away from Garrett’s and towards their position. They are not in any way well hidden, but Harry still cringes and hopes.  
  
“Hey! Harry Potter, is that you?” she calls, foghorn voice cutting effortlessly through the air.  
  
“I think we may have been spotted,” Draco whispers.  
  
“I’ve been spotted,” he whispers back. “In theory, you and Murdoch could still make a run for it at this point.”  
  
Draco says nothing, but when Harry crosses the road to meet the woman with his polite smile firmly in place, he is not alone.  
  
“Hi, can we help you?” he asks and the woman laughs.  
  
“You sent my brother a letter,” she says, wiping her hands on a paper napkin and stuffing her empty breakfast box into a nearby bin. “He’s got the flu so he’s passing all the work stuff straight onto me. To be honest, he’s always so busy that you probably would have ended up with me anyway. I’m the little sister.” She pauses and regards her ample frame with a grin. “The younger sister, anyway.”  
  
“You’re a Scamander?” Draco asks.  
  
She nods. “Rosanna.” She sticks out her hand to Harry and he shakes it, feeling like a complete idiot.  
  
“Harry.”  
  
“Oh, I know all about you,” she says. “And you,” she adds, looking down at Murdoch with a warm smile. She turns to Draco. “You… you must be Q!”  
  
Draco stares at her in disbelief. “How does everyone…?” he begins and then seems to lose the will to argue, instead reaching out to shake Rosanna’s hand. “Yes, I’m Q.”  
  
“Great,” she says, rubbing her hands together and exuding more energy than anyone has a right to at this time of the morning. “Can I have a look, then? I looked at your drawing but I’m afraid I’m none the wiser.”  
  
Draco shoots Harry a weary look and opens the door, stepping back to let Rosanna, Harry and Murdoch into the café.  
  
“Wow, it’s freezing in here,” she says. “Mind if I cast a warming charm?”  
  
Harry and Draco exchange a long look, during which they seem to make a tacit agreement not to admit to the stranger that neither of them have thought at any point to warm Garrett’s with a spell.  
  
“It’s a Muggle area, so…” Harry mumbles, and Rosanna laughs.  
  
“What they don’t see or hear won’t hurt them,” she says, and with a swish of her wand, the dining room is suffused with a gentle warmth that drags a sigh from Harry. “Great lamps,” she adds, watching Draco lighting the wicks.  
  
Soon, the room is comfortable and glowing with soft light, and all three of them have shed their coats and taken up seats at one of the little round tables. Murdoch sits at Rosanna’s feet, sniffing her clothes and revelling in fusses provided by yet another new friend. Harry and Draco eat their sandwiches and drink their tea, eyes trained on the wall as they wait for the spiky creatures to make an appearance.  
  
For a long time, nothing happens, and though Rosanna seems content to entertain them with stories of her travels to study exotic animals, Harry fidgets, staring at the wall and willing the little buggers to show themselves. Just as the town clock chimes for midday, a dark shape pops out of the wall and drops to the floor. It puts out its long stalk and swivels its eye slowly, seeming to sweep the entire dining room and them along with it. To Harry’s disappointment, it then bounces and disappears back into the wall.  
  
“That was a start,” Rosanna says, apparently unruffled.  
  
“Come on, guys, let’s not waste her time,” Harry tries, and for several seconds there is silence, followed by a rumble and then a crescendo of crackling sounds that shakes the floor beneath their feet.  
  
Murdoch barks at the wall and Harry grabs his collar just as a stream of tiny dark shapes begin to pour out of the wall, gathering in a seething, roiling pool on the floor and then separating from each other until several hundred pointy conker cases are scattered around the dining room. Harry pulls his feet up onto his chair, unsurprised to see that Draco has already done the same. Rosanna stares at the sea of little spikes and laughs, prompting every single one of them to shoot out their eyes in unison.  
  
“Well, we did think there might be a few of them,” Draco says quietly.  
  
“They’re watching us,” Harry says, looking around and feeling the weight of many spherical eyes following his every move.  
  
“Of course they are,” Rosanna says. “They want to get a good look at you just as much as you want to get a good look at them. They’re very curious.”  
  
“Do you know what they are?” Harry asks, just as Rosanna leans down and expertly scoops one of the creatures into her hands.  
  
She nods, staring at the furiously rotating eye and beaming. “I’ve never seen these before… not outside of a book, anyway. Where on earth did you get them?”  
  
“It’s a long story,” Draco says, but Rosanna just gives him an encouraging nod.  
  
Between them, they explain all about the mission, the legend around Garrett’s and their accidental discovery. Rosanna listens, glancing between them and the creature in her hands, and when there is nothing left to tell, she speaks.  
  
“This is not a native creature,” she says, gently placing the spiky creature on the floor, where it is immediately surrounded by others, creating a crackling din so loud that Rosanna has to wait until it dies down to continue. “What you have here are Scandinavian whiffles.”  
  
“Whiffles?” Harry repeats, and Rosanna nods.  
  
She draws her wand, purses her lips for a moment and then casts. A beautiful ornamental globe appears on the table in front of her and she turns it slowly, fingers sliding over landmasses rendered in hammered gold and oceans gleaming in polished ebony.  
  
“I’m sorry, did you just conjure that out of nothing?” Draco asks, frowning.  
  
Rosanna wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. I didn’t mean for it to be so fancy. I’m not a show-off, I promise.”  
  
“I’d be a show-off if I could conjure like that,” Harry says.  
  
“It’s not… I mean, I can only do certain things. Globes, clocks, barometers, that sort of stuff. Once I made a meat thermometer, but it didn’t work,” Rosanna says wistfully.  
  
“It’s still very impressive,” Draco says, reaching out to touch the pewter base.  
  
“Everyone in my family has a weird talent,” Rosanna says. “Mum and Dad are both brilliant at riding camels. That’s how they met. Rolf can do incredible things with ice. I can do this.”  
  
“I don’t think I have any weird talents,” Harry says absently, and when he feels Draco’s eyes on him, he flushes. “So, are you going to show us where our whiffles came from?”  
  
Rosanna turns the globe to face them and Harry leans closer, still holding onto Murdoch’s collar, just in case.  
  
“These guys live in the coastal regions of Finland and Sweden, particularly on the Gulf of Bothnia,” she explains, tracing her finger around an area of ebony sea. They like old houses and cold to temperate conditions, and if they find the right environment, they thrive.” She glances at the carpet of whiffles. “And breed.”  
  
“So, they came over here somehow and they’ve been breeding in the walls?” Harry asks.  
  
“The walls, the attic, any little spaces they can hide in,” Rosanna says. “That being said, they like to roam around, too. They can camouflage themselves to look like shadows if they don’t want to be seen. In Finland, they call them ‘varjolento’—roughly, it means ‘shadow creature’.”  
  
“They’re not… dark, are they?” Draco asks, and Rosanna laughs so hard that every single whiffle rotates its eye to fix upon her.  
  
“No. They’re just… exactly what they look like, really. Funny little things. They can be a bit noisy and maybe a bit destructive if they’re very unhappy, but from what I’ve read, they actually really like people. Look.”  
  
She picks up another whiffle and then swishes her wand, creating a waft of steam. The little creature crackles and bounces into the vapour over and over, retracting its eye and becoming a tiny, iridescent ball of pure joy.  
  
“They like steam?” Draco asks. “Just ordinary steam?”  
  
“Yep. And look… now that he’s happy, his points are softer,” Rosanna says, holding out the whiffle for Harry to touch.  
  
He hesitates. “I don’t want to frighten him.”  
  
Rosanna smiles. “Trust me, I’m a Scamander,” she teases, and Harry relents.  
  
To his astonishment, the spikes that had previously prickled his skin have relaxed into soft bristles, like the ones on an old-fashioned hairbrush.  
  
“You have to touch this,” he says to Draco. “It’s not going to bite you.”  
  
“How do you know?” Draco asks darkly. “It can produce an eye from nowhere, it can turn itself into a shadow, it can fly—who knows what else it can do?”  
  
“It’s not true flight,” Rosanna says helpfully. “Whiffles can stick to surfaces and they bounce very well, but they can’t fly.”  
  
“They try,” Draco says, but he is smiling as he strokes the bristles, and warm against Harry’s side where he leans a little too close.  
  
“Come on, Q, these guys need to be looked after,” Rosanna says. “They’re pretty rare to start with but finding a colony so far from home is incredible. They’ve really taken to you.”  
  
“To me?” Draco asks, drawing his wand and Summoning his eyeglass. “May I take him now? I want to have a look at his… well, this structure supporting the eye.”  
  
“To both of you.” Rosanna hands over the whiffle, who goes to Draco quite happily, watched over by all of his friends on the floor. “That structure is his oculus—that includes the eye as well as the stalk. It just means ‘eye’, which I don’t think is very inventive, but there you go.”  
  
“Hmm,” Draco says, but he is peering down at the whiffle through his eyeglass and therefore lost from the conversation.  
  
“If they’re noisy and destructive when they’re unhappy, do you think that could account for why the people in this area think the café is haunted?” Harry asks, startled when a whiffle, very much still spiky, bounces against his ankle.  
  
“Definitely. In Finland, the Muggles usually blame poltergeists for a whiffle colony they can’t see. In my experience, it’s easier just to let them,” Rosanna says. “What is he doing?”  
  
Harry glances at Draco, who is gently touching the oculus with his fingertip and squinting through his eyeglass.  
  
“He’s… investigating,” Harry says after a moment’s thought. He smiles at Rosanna, who beams back at him. “Listen, I’ve got loads more questions for you, but first… lunch?”  
  
**~*~**  
  
Hermione refills Harry’s glass with sparkling water and he drains half of it in one gulp, hoping his smile will hide the fact that he is attempting to wash the taste of burned meat out of his mouth.  
  
“So, yeah,” he says, poking at his food with his fork. “They love steam—Rosanna did this spell that just filled the room with it and they went mad, it was brilliant. Of course, we were all soaked afterwards, but it didn’t matter. And they eat dust! How fantastic is that? And Draco wants to make a recording of this crackling noise they make so he can…” Harry pauses. “What?”  
  
“Nothing,” Ron says, and Hermione shakes her head, but it’s clear that both of them are trying very hard not to laugh.  
  
Harry puts his fork down and rubs at his face. “I was going on, wasn’t I?”  
  
“I can’t remember the last time you were so excited about anything,” Hermione says. “It’s wonderful. It’s just that you were talking so fast I felt like you might just…pop.”  
  
Ron lets out an inelegant snort. “Yeah, and who’s going to clean that up?”  
  
“You,” Hermione says. “I cooked.”  
  
Harry and Ron exchange glances and when she turns to discourage Murdoch from licking her trousers, Ron spells Harry’s leftovers onto his plate and dispatches them in a matter of seconds.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want any wine?” he asks, picking up his glass and pretending to examine it in the light from the lamps. “It’s…” He swirls it slowly. “A red one.”  
  
Harry suppresses a shudder. “No, thanks. I’m trying to keep a clear head for a bit longer.”  
  
“I saw Hannah today,” Hermione says, following his train of thought. “She wanted me to tell you she was sorry again for the way Merrill spoke to you. I told her that you don’t blame her at all, but she was pretty insistent.”  
  
“Probably embarrassed,” Ron says. “I would be if I had to be seen in public with that idiot.”  
  
“I don’t blame her,” Harry assures. “I’m just glad she’s out of it.”  
  
He fiddles with his glass and tries not to think about the way he had felt that night, stumbling home and clinging to Murdoch like the failure Merrill clearly thought he was. It’s been easy enough to put out of his mind since then, but for some reason he suddenly feels raw.  
  
“Tell us what you’re thinking, mate,” Ron says, and Harry shakes himself.  
  
“I was just thinking about what he said to me,” he admits.  
  
Hermione touches the back of his hand gently. “Don’t give him another thought. Besides, Harry, there’s no rush for you to have children.”  
  
“There really isn’t,” Ron says with feeling, and then glances at the door as though one of them is going to come bursting into the room. “I love them, obviously, but they’re noisy, they cost a fortune to feed, they grow out of their clothes every few seconds and you never get a moment’s peace. But I love them.”  
  
“You can’t go anywhere on your own, even the bathroom,” Hermione says earnestly. “You never get enough sleep, even when they’re older, because there are nightmares and thunderstorms and ‘the cat is scared so can we get into bed with you?’… we do love them… but you still have so much time before you have to think about things like that.”  
  
His friends look at him expectantly. Harry sighs.  
  
“Okay, well, first of all, I think I’m dealing with at least some of that already with some daft dog who eats everything that isn’t nailed down and hasn’t let me go to the bathroom on my own for years, but I will absolutely take it all under advisement. Second of all, I actually meant the part where he basically accused me of being a useless Auror.”  
  
Hermione rests her chin in one hand and regards him carefully. “Harry, do you want to be head Auror?”  
  
“No,” he admits. Some days he’s not sure he wants to be an Auror at all, but he’s not about to open that can of worms at ten o’clock on a Friday night.  
  
“Then fuck him,” Ron says, and the wrinkles his nose. “I mean, don’t… that would be unfair to Hannah, and anyway, he looks like Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle all grown up.”  
  
The image surprises a laugh out of Harry, and Ron grins. He gets up to clear the table and Harry turns back to Hermione, feeling much lighter.  
  
“Are you sure you still want to take Rose and Hugo out tomorrow after everything we’ve said?” she asks, a tiny, very real flicker of worry in her eyes.  
  
“Of course I do,” Harry says easily. “It’ll be good for the two of you to have a break. Apparently Mr Bobble and his crafts are aimed at kids between two and seven, but I think Rose will enjoy the library and now we know the whiffles are safe, we can take them over to Garrett’s to have a look.”  
  
“We?” Hermione asks, eyebrows raised. “Is Draco coming with you?”  
  
“We haven’t planned it or anything,” Harry says, trying to fight down a blush. “It’s just that now we know a bit more about these whiffles, I have a feeling that he’ll be there whether it’s the weekend or not.”  
  
“How’s Q doing?” Ron asks, carrying three dishes of chocolate mousse to the table and distributing spoons. “I’ve been meaning to ask about him.”  
  
Harry digs his spoon into his dessert and smiles at his friend. “You know, I think he’s starting to enjoy himself.”


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Twelfth of December**  – footprints in the snow  
  
  
  
“Harry, are you sure about this?” Hermione asks, watching anxiously as Harry gathers his companions for the day around him. “It’s not that I don’t think you can manage, but the Apparation alone will probably impact your magic for the rest of the day.”  
  
“We’re going to a story and craft session at a Muggle library, followed by lunch at a Muggle café and a wander around a little Muggle town,” Harry says, grabbing Hugo’s hand, hoisting Rose more securely onto his back and tapping his pocket for her miniaturised but still very heavy wheelchair. “How much magic do you think I’m going to need?”  
  
“Why didn’t Q come and help?” Ron asks, catching Hermione from behind and making her squeal.  
  
Harry smiles to himself. “ _Q_  is staking out our seats on the storytelling carpet,” he says. “Look, just have a good day, enjoy the silence, and make sure Murdoch doesn’t bring shame on his family.”  
  
“I promise nothing,” Ron says solemnly, and Harry is unsurprised to note that the daft dog is already glued to his side, knowing from experience that the tall human eats constantly and drops crumbs often.  
  
“Be good, Murdo,” Harry says.  
  
“Be good, Murdo!” Hugo echoes, already bouncing up and down with excitement.  
  
“Both of you be good for Uncle Harry,” Hermione says sternly, and Harry is fairly sure he hears ‘And Uncle Q’ in Ron’s voice just as the floor whips away from underneath him.  
  
“Wow,” Rose breathes right next to his ear seconds later, and he opens his eyes.  
  
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he admits, just as the usual icy wind slices around them and pulls a shiver from all three.  
  
“Real snow,” Rose sighs.  
  
Harry laughs. “You’ve seen real snow before.”  
  
“Not this year,” Rose says. “Where are we?”  
  
“Here, silly,” Hugo sighs, leaning down and poking his finger into the snow.  
  
Rose gives him a weary look and Harry laughs.  
  
“We’re about two hundred miles north of Ottery St Catchpole. This town is called Blackwell-in-the-Fold. Would you like to go and see it?”  
  
“Does it have any dragons?” Hugo asks, peering up at Harry with hopeful eyes.  
  
“I haven’t seen any, I’m afraid, but you never know,” Harry says, and Hugo starts to pull him up the hill.  
  
Laughing, Harry pulls him back and then lets go of his hand in order to restore Rose’s wheelchair and lower her into it. The snow may be beautiful but it makes the incline a lot more challenging than usual, every step a battle between upward progress and backward sliding, and despite the cold wind, Harry is sticky and breathing hard by the time they reach the summit. They pause for a moment for Hugo to make a snowball, Harry to get his breath back and for all three of them to admire the way the snow has settled over the little town. The neat rows of sandstone houses are dusted with white powder, many of the windows glowing with candles and Christmas lights; even the severe concrete form of the library is softened by a glittering white topping to its flat roof and a criss-cross of footsteps in the snow around a sandwich board that proclaims, ‘MR BOBBLE IS HERE TODAY AT TEN!’  
  
“Who actually is Mr Bobble?” Rose asks, looking up from her chair.  
  
“I think he’s a bit of a local celebrity,” Harry says. “You know, a children’s entertainer. He might be a bit young for you but I think Hugo will enjoy it.”  
  
“I don’t think it will be too young for me if I can make a Christmas card for Mum and Dad,” Rose says.  
  
“Alright then,” Harry says, gripping the handles of her chair tightly and glancing at Hugo, who is now pelting snowballs at nothing in particular. “Hold on to the chair, please, especially when we cross the road.”  
  
“I know, Uncle Harry,” he says airily, and when he grabs the handle of his sister’s chair, they set off down the hill.  
  
“Aaaaa!” yells Hugo, laughing and shrieking when their walk inevitably turns into a chaotic sprint.  
  
“Aaaaa!” Rose cries, copying her brother and flinging her arms into the air in a fit of giggles.  
  
Harry darts glances at the empty road before them, feels his feet and ankles sinking into the snow, thinks of Draco hiding from Joe the librarian and trying to reserve the best section of carpet.  
  
“Aaaaa!” he shouts, allowing the hill and the snow and the ridiculous exhilaration to take him.  
  
They skid to a stop in a heap of giggles. It takes a moment for the three of them to untangle themselves, and when they do, Rose has snow in her hair that Harry suspects has something to do with her brother. He can already see Gladys opening her front door, so he just helps her to brush the worst of it out and crosses the road.  
  
“I didn’t know you had little ones,” she says, and then bellows over her shoulder: “Bob, Harry’s brought his children!”  
  
“Well, that’s nice,” Bob answers from the living room.  
  
“Actually, they’re my niece and nephew. Gladys, this is Rose and Hugo.”  
  
“Niece and nephew, they are!” Gladys shouts back to Bob.  
  
“Grand.”  
  
Gladys smiles at the children. “Off to the library, are you?”  
  
“It’s Mr Bobble,” Hugo says confidently. “He’s a local calamity.”  
  
Harry snorts. “That’s not quite what I said.”  
  
Gladys lets out a raucous giggle. “Well, each to their own. You’d better get going if you don’t want to miss the start.”  
  
Harry nods. “Oh… just one thing I wanted to ask you. The man who had Garrett’s before us—I mean, we don’t have it, but… was he European at all?”  
  
Gladys purses her lips and considers the question. “Well, he wasn’t from around here, love. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”  
  
Harry hides a smile. “Of course not. Do you think he could have been from Scandinavia?”  
  
“I don’t really know… tell you what, though… he sounded a bit like that man from the Muppet Show. You know,  _hurdy-gurdy-wurdy_ ,” she mimics, and both children burst into laughter. “Does that help, love?”  
  
“Yes. Thank you, Gladys. We’d better be off.”  
  
Harry waves to her and turns Rose’s chair in the direction of the library. With the knowledge that Garrett’s had apparently been owned by the Swedish Chef, a little of the mystery of the whiffles begins to unravel. A creature so small and curious would have no problem disappearing into a suitcase, and according to Rosanna, an entire colony can be started by a single individual.  
  
“How very productive,” he mumbles to himself.  
  
“Are you talking to me, Uncle Harry?” Rose asks.  
  
“No, just to myself. Don’t mind me, Rose, I’m a crazy old man. Here we are.”  
  
“When we get inside, can I wheel myself?”  
  
“Of course you can, it’s just a bit…” Harry’s shoes slide on the access ramp and he flails for a moment. “… slippery just here.”  
  
Rose and Hugo glance at each other and trade gleeful smiles. Harry keeps pushing, ignoring the curious eyes from other patrons and finally making it into the building, where the air is pleasantly warm and delicious with the fruity scent of mince pies. The library is bustling, full of people in winter coats and weekend perfumes, milling around the children’s section in little knots. Their catch-up chatter and comparisons of Christmas shopping lists forms a hum in Harry’s ears that makes him feel momentarily overwhelmed, and he hurriedly scans the crowd for Draco.  
  
At last, he spots him, and though Mr Bobble himself has yet to appear, it is clear that Draco has selected and defended a prime section of carpet. Casual as anything, he has folded himself onto a spot just inches away from the mistletoe-draped chair and stack of books with a glittering ‘RESERVED’ sign perched on top. Just to the right of the chair and oblivious to the disapproving eyes of a mother with twin baby girls, Draco sits cross-legged in his dark coat and scarf, reading a picture book about farm vehicles.  
  
He makes a picture of stillness in a sea of absolute chaos, and Harry stares, gripping the handles of Rose’s chair until his fingers hurt, thrilled and in pain all at once.  
  
“Why are you in that chair?”  
  
Harry snaps back to attention to find a small boy staring at Rose.  
  
“There’s something wrong with my spine,” she says. “I can’t walk.”  
  
Something prickles at the back of Harry’s neck and he turns back to see that Draco has lowered his book and is gazing over at them, brow furrowed.  
  
The boy wrinkles his nose. Harry is ready to jump in and defend Rose when she says:  
  
“It’s alright. It doesn’t hurt me and it’s not catching.”  
  
“Oh. Do you want to play hide and seek with me?” the boy asks.  
  
Rose turns to look at Harry and he nods, releasing the handles of her chair.  
  
“Quietly, okay? And come back when the story starts.”  
  
She nods and grabs the wheels, manoeuvring the chair with practised ease and disappearing into the shelves. Harry watches for a moment, following the bouncing light of the tracking spell that only he can see, and then weaves with Hugo over to the carpet.  
  
“What is wrong with her spine?” Draco asks, lowering his voice and leaning close to Harry.  
  
Hugo has found a large paperclip in the carpet and is quietly absorbed in examining it, so Harry explains, staring at his hands when Draco’s intense expression becomes too much.  
  
“So, yeah… she’ll walk again but she’s too young for the potion therapy she needs. She’s amazing, though. She doesn’t let it get her down at all,” Harry says.  
  
“I see. Why won’t you look at me?” Draco asks, and Harry’s heart lurches.  
  
“I didn’t realise I wasn’t,” he lies, forcing himself to meet Draco’s eyes and finding himself caught.  
  
“I wish I could understand you,” Draco sighs, and then turns abruptly when the room fills with lively music and a man in a stripy suit and a top hat bursts onto the carpet.  
  
“Hello, everyone!” he shouts and the children shout back.  
  
“I’m sorry, what was that?” he demands, climbing up to stand on his chair and pretending to wobble precariously.  
  
The children laugh and call out, and Harry twists around to check on Rose. The little light tells him that she is already on her way back to him, and apparently at speed. Before he has the chance to turn around again or indeed wonder exactly what Draco had meant about understanding him, Rose is back at the edge of the carpet, breathless and grinning with her new friend at her side.  
  
“Do you want to stay there?” Harry mouths, and she nods.  
  
“My zip is stuck,” Hugo sighs.  
  
Harry struggles with the recalcitrant fastening for a moment and then yanks it loose, leaving Hugo to free himself from his coat and sit proudly in his favourite jumper, last year’s Christmas present from Grandma Molly and featuring a vivid red dragon. Harry turns back to Mr Bobble only to find that he has ‘vanished’ behind his chair and started to throw multicoloured pompoms in to the crowd.  
  
“Whoever catches a bobble gets to choose a story…  _ooh, who said that_?” he adds, poking a goose hand-puppet around the side of the chair.  
  
“Gooses don’t talk,” Hugo says, laughing so hard that he almost falls into Draco’s lap.  
  
“This one does!” the goose shouts, and Mr Bobble catches Harry’s eye through a gap in the chair.  
  
“Hugo,” Harry mouths, holding up four fingers, and the man gives him a grateful wink.  
  
“I know all about you, Hugo,” says the goose, stretching out its long neck. “I know that you’re four years old and that you like dragons!”  
  
Hugo gasps, as do all of the other small children. “How do you know?”  
  
The goose turns its head upside down and laughs. “I know all sorts of things. I know if you’ve been good or bad—all of you—and I know  _Father Christmas_.”  
  
A little ripple passes through the assembled children and Harry finds himself looking at Rose, who is beaming at her brother and scribbling something in a little notebook.  
  
He watches her for a moment and then takes in the faces of the other parents, aunts and uncles, siblings and friends. Everyone is smiling, even the ones who look as though they haven’t slept in weeks, even the lady with the twins who hadn’t liked Draco sitting on the carpet. The fluorescent light from the ceiling is softened by the glow from the vast Christmas tree and the miles of gold tinsel that bathe the scene in thousands of tiny reflections. At the back of the crowd, leaning against a tall shelf, Joe the librarian looks on with pride.  
  
When Harry turns back to the front, the goose is sitting politely on one arm of the chair, and Mr Bobble is leaning forward with a colourful book on his knee.  
  
“Our first story is  _‘Mog’s Christmas’_ , chosen for us by Michael,” he says, showing the children the picture of a cat on the cover. When he starts to read, his voice is softer, less manic, and before the end of the first page, the whole place has fallen silent to listen.  
  
Harry checks on Rose one more time and then glances at Draco, whose mouth lifts into a teasing half smile.  
  
“Pay attention. There may be questions at the end.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
Following several more festive books and a break for drinks and mince pies, Mr Bobble and his goose puppet return to energetic form to lead a gluey, glittery craft session that would have made Madam Pince froth at the mouth. Joe and his colleagues smile and watch, occasionally darting over to the desk to help customers and joining in whenever a child needs help opening a jar or sticking a sequin to a paper plate.  
  
Rose makes several Christmas cards with the design advice of Brendan, who Harry almost doesn’t recognise out of his sober sixth-form college uniform, and Hugo makes an exceedingly sparkly something that he insists is exactly what Grandma Molly wants for Christmas. When they at last leave the library in high spirits, the late afternoon sky has faded to the rich sort of purple that only seems to appear on the crispest of winter days.  
  
The Breakfast Barrel is set to close for the day, but Mike keeps the door open for Harry, Draco and the children, and when they remind him that the library is about to expel crowds of thirsty families, he lets them all choose a cake for free.  
  
“Mum told us about the whiffles,” Rose says, picking up her iced bun. “Can we see them? Can I dip this in my hot chocolate?”  
  
“Yes, you can see them, and yes, you can do whatever you want with it as long as you still eat it,” Harry says, hoping that Ron and Hermione don’t have any specific rules on the subject.  
  
“They might not come out. They’re still very shy,” Draco says, and Rose and Hugo both look disappointed. “But we can try.”  
  
As predicted, the café soon fills with people and children clutching glitter-covered crafts, forming an enormous queue that seems to thrill and horrify Mike simultaneously. Harry, Draco and the children finish their cakes and drinks and fight their way out into the cold air, stopping to admire the Christmas tree in the square before heading to Garrett’s. Inside, Draco lights the oil lamps and Harry warms the dining room, thinking of Rosanna and hoping that she will decide to visit them again.  
  
“Dad said this place was haunted,” Rose says, turning her chair in circles and examining the dining room. “I think it’s nice.”  
  
“It’s not really haunted,” Draco explains. “That’s just how the Muggles tried to explain all the noises the whiffles made in the walls.”  
  
“Ghosts are okay, though, aren’t they?” Rose asks, eyebrows knitted. “There are ghosts at Hogwarts.”  
  
Hugo clutches his stomach and laughs. Rose rolls her eyes.  
  
“He thinks the word ‘Hogwarts’ is funny.”  
  
“Listen,” Harry says, holding up a hand.  
  
Everyone falls perfectly still and silent. The crackling sound, now familiar, rises in the corner of the room, growing louder and louder until Rose covers her ears, and then a single whiffle bounces out of the wall, poking out its eye and examining each one of them in turn. No one says a word as the scout whiffle returns to the wall, and Harry holds his breath. Seconds later, out pour the others, pooling on the floor and then ricocheting off one another as they pull apart.  
  
“They’re getting more confident,” Harry says.  
  
“They’re lovely,” Rose sighs, leaning forward in her chair. “May I touch one?”  
  
“Would you like me to pick one up for you?” Draco asks, already screwing in his eyeglass. “They’re friendly but their points are very sharp so you have to be very—”  
  
“Ow!” Hugo cries, straightening up and holding up his finger. “He bit me!”  
  
“Bugger,” Harry mutters, picking his way through the sea of whiffles to scoop up Hugo. “Are you alright?”  
  
“He bit me,” Hugo repeats, looking down at the offending whiffle with an odd sort of admiration. “I picked him up and his spike bit me.”  
  
“I promise he didn’t bite you, Hugo,” Harry says, stepping carefully and depositing him into a chair. Flooded with guilt, he holds out his hand. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”  
  
“He didn’t bite me?” Hugo asks, letting Harry take his hand.  
  
“No. It’s just that he’s very pointy and you took him by surprise.” He inspects the small cut and sags with relief. “It’s not too bad but we’d better let Mum have a look.”  
  
“How do you know it’s a him?” Rose asks, and when Harry turns to look at her, she is clearly addressing Draco. She is also holding a whiffle of her own and stroking its bristle-soft points. “I mean… how can you tell it’s a male?”  
  
Draco blinks. Runs a hand through his hair. Opens his mouth and then closes it again.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she confides, “I know about the B-I-R-D-S and the B-E-E-S. Hugo doesn’t, though.”  
  
“I do!” Hugo protests, and then frowns. “What’s a birb?”  
  
Harry grins, fighting the urge to abandon Draco to his fate and just about winning.  
  
“Tell you what. Let’s get you two home and your Mum and Dad can tell you _all_  about it.”


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Thirteenth of December**  – icicles  
  
  
  
Harry spears a green bean on his fork and tries to lift it to his mouth, frowning when it slides across his plate in a long, gravy-covered spiral.  
  
“Arthur, I don’t mean to be rude, but what is this?” he asks, peering at the trailing vegetable, now pretty certain that it isn’t a green bean at all.  
  
“I’ve got one, too!” Rose declares, holding up an identical green spiral and grinning at Harry.  
  
“You’ve all got one,” Arthur says, puffing up with pride. “It’s a pea tornado.”  
  
“That sounds unhygienic,” George mutters, and Molly gives him a stern look.  
  
Arthur doesn’t seem to notice. “I used gelatine and plastic tubing and a stabilising spell. It’s a bit more interesting, isn’t it?”  
  
“There was nothing wrong with my peas the way they were,” Molly mutters.  
  
“But… it’s science,” Arthur protests, looking at his family and sagging when he sees that everyone is eating around their pea tornadoes. “Draco’s into experiments, isn’t he?”  
  
Startled, Harry nods. “Yeah, he likes to make gadgets and machines and things.” Smiling at Arthur, he slices into the slippery green coil and chews gamely, relieved that it doesn’t taste anywhere near as terrifying as it looks. A little bit rubbery, perhaps, but fresh and light with a hint of mint.  
  
“Do you like it?” Arthur asks, pinning Harry with a hopeful expression.  
  
“I do. In fact, this whole lunch is absolutely delicious,” he says, catching Molly’s eye for a moment and watching her flush with pleasure.  
  
“I like it,” Hugo says, sucking one end of the pea tornado into this mouth and slopping gravy all down his jumper. “And I like Draco. And I like whiffles, even though one of them bited me.”  
  
Hermione opens her mouth to correct him and then seems to think better of it.  
  
“Let’s have a look at your massive scar, then,” George says, and Hugo holds out his finger for inspection.  
  
Molly watches from the other end of the table, brow furrowed. “Are you sure these things are safe, Harry?”  
  
“I’m sure,” he says, opting to pretend that this is the first time she’s asked the question.  
  
“Mum, Harry knows what he’s doing,” Ron says.  
  
Harry smiles at his plate. He wishes he felt so sure about that himself, but even so, his friend’s confidence is reassuring.  
  
“You’ll have to come and see them,” he says to Molly. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to stretch out the mission and I wouldn’t want you to miss out.”  
  
“It would be nice to have a day out,” she says, gazing fondly at her husband, even as he performs a small celebration in his chair, having narrowly beaten his grandson in a pea tornado-sucking race.  
  
“You’ve got horseradish on your chin, Dad,” Ginny says.  
  
She is standing at the window with the roast potato tray in her hands, and now she gazes down at it as though she can’t remember why she picked it up in the first place.  
  
“I can help you with that if you like,” Blaise says, indicating his empty plate.  
  
“Would you like another pea tornado?” Arthur asks hopefully.  
  
Blaise grins. “Make it two. I feel like living dangerously.”  
  
“Sit down, Ginny,” Molly chides. “Some of us are still eating.”  
  
“Okay,” Ginny says absently, biting into a roast potato and looking out into the frozen back garden. “Have you seen it out here, though? It looks like a Christmas card. Icicles and everything.”  
  
“Really?” Ron says, getting up and going to stand at her side. “Cool.”  
  
When Blaise and George leave their seats too, Molly sighs and seems to give up, setting down her knife and fork and engaging Rose in conversation. Harry watches Hugo, who is inspecting his finger and making crackling noises to himself.  
  
“I’m really sorry about that,” he sighs. “Is he okay?”  
  
“Harry, it was barely a pinprick,” Hermione says. “By the time I got the antiseptic out, he’d forgotten all about it. Besides, it was a good opportunity for a lesson about treating animals with respect.”  
  
“I’m glad to hear it,” Harry says, letting himself off the hook just a little.  
  
“That being said, I could have done without the conversation about hermaphroditic reproduction I had to have with Rose.”  
  
Harry looks at her weary expression and laughs. “Well, that’s what you get for having such a clever, curious daughter,” he says.  
  
Hermione smiles at him, and then they both jump as the back door is flung open and Ron and Ginny dash out into the garden. Harry turns to look but Molly has already spelled the door firmly closed behind them.  
  
“We don’t all need to freeze,” she says. “Why are all my children mad?”  
  
“I’m not,” George says. “I’m a calm, level-headed, stand-up bloke.”  
  
“No, you’re not, Uncle George,” Rose says, scandalised. “You’re  _fun_.”  
  
George laughs and ruffles her hair until she squeals, while Molly looks around at the part of her family that isn’t yelling and throwing things in the garden, eyes warm with affection and exasperation. Arthur presses a kiss to her cheek and beams when Blaise finishes his third pea tornado and takes another roastie from the abandoned tray.  
  
Seconds later, the door bursts open again and Ginny scuttles into the kitchen, closely followed by Ron. Both are pink-cheeked and breathless and Ginny is clutching a collection of pointed, icy objects.  
  
“I thought we could put these in our drinks… you know, like they do in the magazines,” she says, setting the icicles on the draining board with a clatter. “What do you think?”  
  
“That sounds fancy,” Molly says, already drawing several glasses from a cupboard with her wand.  
  
“Auntie Ginny, that’s  _so_  Christmassy,” Rose breathes, wriggling in her chair.  
  
“How do you know they’re clean?” Hermione asks, frowning.  
  
Blaise laughs, accepting a glass from Molly. “They were hanging from a tree, do you think a dog flew up and piddled on them?”  
  
Hugo snorts with laughter at the word ‘piddled’ and almost falls off his chair.  
  
“A bird might have,” Harry says, grinning at Hermione.  
  
“A bird might have piddled!” Hugo declares, and Blaise casts a guilty look at his parents.  
  
“They’re fine,” Ginny insists, picking up a large icicle and examining it. “Don’t be daft. What shall we have to drink?”  
  
Arthur is already halfway out of his chair. “I’ve got a nice elderflower that would—”  
  
“NO!” several people, including Harry, shout at once.  
  
After a moment’s silence, the adults around the table exchange glances and then burst into laughter, leaving Rose and Hugo bewildered and Arthur disappointed.  
  
“Your wine’s great, Dad,” Ginny says, patting him on the shoulder as he retakes his seat. “But it’s better for parties or… or…”  
  
“Explosions,” George suggests.  
  
“I think I saw some pumpkin juice in the pantry,” Hermione says, biting down on a smile as she leaves the table.  
  
“Perfect,” Ginny says, and when Hermione returns with the jug, she fills everyone’s glass and adds a chunk of icicle to each one.  
  
When everyone raises their glasses, Rose hesitates. “Why are we having a toast?”  
  
“Why not?” Blaise asks.  
  
“Because I found icicles,” Ginny says solemnly.  
  
“Because it’s Sunday and we’re all here together,” Molly says. “Most of us, at least.”  
  
“To family,” Ron suggests.  
  
Harry raises his glass. The chunk of fresh ice clinks and bobs and the sound is echoed as everyone around the table repeats Ron’s words:  
  
“To family.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
Following an afternoon of food and noisy company, Harry lets Murdoch take him for a walk in the park as the sun begins to set. Their steps are slow and ponderous in the fading light; Harry breathes in the scent of woodsmoke and rotten leaves and doesn’t bother to think of much at all. Once back at number twelve, he does his best to settle in for the night, but despite his best efforts, he finds himself wandering from room to room, irritable and without purpose.  
  
Murdoch follows him, occasionally reaching up to push his cold nose into Harry’s hand, and he doesn’t protest when he is clipped onto his lead and picked up for transport. Harry doesn’t really know what he’s doing or why; he only knows that somehow, after a day with his family, he just doesn’t want to be alone, and no one can be alone in a room full of whiffles.  
  
When he reaches Garrett’s, the town is already dark and the streets are empty. Inevitably, Gladys is standing in her doorway in her flowery apron and carpet slippers.  
  
“Burning the midnight oil, are you?”  
  
Harry looks over at the town clock. “Gladys, it’s quarter past six.”  
  
“Well, your friend’s been here for hours,” she says, and of course he has. “Now, I’m going to ask you a question and you’re not to get cross.”  
  
“Okay,” Harry says, unsure about being told how to feel but deciding that Gladys has been very kind to them and he can try his best. “Go on, then.”  
  
Gladys looks right into his eyes, takes a breath, and is cut off by the sound of Draco’s voice from inside the café. Two seconds later, the front door flies open, a rather damp Draco steps out onto the pavement and seems to freeze at the sight of them.  
  
“Ah,” he says, glancing at each of them in turn and then pretending intense interest in an invisible crease in his dark shirt.  
  
“Maybe another time, love,” Gladys says, and turns to go. “I’ll be round with the tray in a few minutes.”  
  
The moment she is out of sight, Draco mutters, “fucking hell” and walks straight back into the dining room. Baffled, Harry follows him and is greeted by a wall of warm steam. His glasses immediately fog up and he spells them clear, just in time to make out something Draco-shaped dropping to the floor and struggling with a large object that seems to be the source of a terrific whirring sound. Murdoch’s ears draw up and he plasters himself against Harry’s side.  
  
“Do you need some help?” he calls, breathing in water vapour and feeling disoriented.  
  
“No, I’m fine,” Draco shouts, and then: “Actually, that’s a lie. Do you think you can persuade these little buggers into the kitchen? I don’t want to have to modify Gladys’s memory if I don’t have to.”  
  
_What little buggers?_  Harry thinks, but when he steps closer and squints, he can just about see the rippling, bouncing colony of whiffles under the clouds of vapour. They seem to be having a wonderful time in the steam, and Harry smiles, before remembering that he is being asked to tempt them away from their favourite thing in the world and into a dry, boring kitchen.  
  
“Draco, why didn’t you just ask her not to bring the tray?” he yells. The whirring sound seems to be increasing and, in combination with the delighted crackling of the whiffles, is almost deafening.  
  
Draco’s voice comes from somewhere near his feet. “She’d be mortally offended, you know that.”  
  
Taking care not to step on him or the whiffles or Murdoch, Harry edges towards the kitchen. He makes perhaps three feet of progress before he stops, conscious that the daft dog is terrified by the scary steam and is disturbing whiffles left, right and centre. Harry squints through the steam at the source of the chaos, now able to make out a shiny copper dome and several intriguing knobs.  
  
“Draco, can we just move  _this_?” he yells.  
  
“Er… yes… we can try,” Draco calls back, appearing just inches away from him and grabbing his arm for balance.  
  
Harry stares. He tries not to, but he can’t help it. Draco is soaked through, dark clothes clinging to every sharp line of his body, hair dripping and scraped back from his face by unthinking fingers. His pale skin is flushed from the heat and covered in a light sheen while the heady scent of lemon and spice spirals from his body and hits Harry squarely in the pit of the stomach.  
  
“Now you’re looking at me,” Draco says lightly, and Harry can only trace the shapes of the words on his lips as the copper machine continues to whirr and belch steam out around them.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, mouth dry and skin damp. “Sorry about that.”  
  
“We should move this thing before she gets here,” Draco says, voice a little louder now, and when Murdoch leaps and barks, Harry snaps back to the moment. “It’s delicate, but if we lift it together we should be able to float it into the kitchen, and perhaps they’ll follow.”  
  
Harry nods, fingers slipping on his wand and Murdoch’s lead as he and Draco cast together, lifting the copper device into the air and levitating it into the kitchen. His wand arm wobbles dangerously but he grits his teeth and holds firm until the device is safely on the kitchen tiles. When the whiffles begin to flock after it, he sags with relief, and when every last one of them is clear of the dining room, he spells the door shut and locks it, just in case.  
  
The door handle rattles and they turn as one, realising that the dining room is still very much full of steam. In the moment before the door opens, they exchange a brief glance of panic.  
  
“Here you are, loves, tea and a few biscuits,” Gladys announces, stepping into the shop with her tray and stripy teapot. “Good heavens, what’s all this about?”  
  
She sets the tray down and wafts at the steam with both arms.  
  
“It’s… er… just a test,” Harry improvises. “You know… for damp.”  
  
“Looks like you’re creating damp to me,” Gladys says. “Look at the pair of you—you’re all wet!”  
  
Harry looks down at his own soaked clothes in surprise. “It’s… erm… a new test,” he says.  
  
“It’s a property developer thing,” Draco adds, and Gladys nods slowly.  
  
“Well, if you need a damp proof course doing, you want to ask John Allerton—that’s Craig’s father. He has his own company. They do all sorts. Did my cavity wall,” she says, eyes still flicking between them as she backs towards the door. “Let me know if you need a towel.”  
  
“Thanks, Gladys,” Harry says faintly, watching her step out into the street. “She didn’t believe us, did she?”  
  
“I’m not sure if she thinks we’re liars or just very strange,” Draco says, heading for the kitchen door. “Alright, you can come out now, but I’m turning off the machine. It needs a little bit of recalibrating.”  
  
“A little bit?” Harry says, mostly to himself. “Murdoch’s wet, too. I suppose I should take him home and dry him.”  
  
“Tea first?” Draco asks, pouring a cup and settling himself on the floor with his knees pulled up, drenched and weary and surrounded by curious whiffles.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, pouring his own cup and pulling up a chair at the table.  
  
He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to sit at this table ten feet away from Draco; he wants to drop down at his side where the steam from the kitchen is billowing in drifts. He wants to touch Draco’s damp skin, kiss the uncertain little line between his eyebrows and tell him everything. All of which, he supposes, is the reason he should go. It’s too hard, and it’s just getting harder.  
  
“You know yesterday, when we were in the library?” he says, unable to stop himself.  
  
Draco gazes at him, sharp edges softened by the steam. “Yes?”  
  
“You said that you wished you could understand me.” Harry bites his lip hard. “What did you mean?”  
  
“I shouldn’t have said that.”  
  
“But you did.”  
  
Draco sighs. “Look… I’m not exactly skilled at reading people. I never have been. It used to drive my father mad, for all that matters now. Sometimes it bothers me that I can’t understand what you’re feeling when we’ve worked together for so many years. That’s all.”  
  
Harry says nothing for a long time, surprised by the revelation and the fact that when he really thinks about it, it all makes sense. He holds on tightly to Murdoch with the effort of keeping himself in his seat and not giving in to that urge to sit at Draco’s side.  
  
“I don’t mean to be cryptic,” he says at last, offering a sheepish smile.  
  
Draco laughs shortly. “You’re not, I promise.”  
  
“Is that an insult?”  
  
“No, Harry,” Draco says, and he closes his eyes. “Go home and dry your dog.”  
  
“I will.” Harry stands up and drains his tea cup. “You’re not going to sleep here, are you?”  
  
Draco opens one eye. “What, when I have a  _very nice_  flat to sleep in? Bugger off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
  
Harry shakes his head and walks out into the dark evening with Murdoch at his side. The cold wind tears at his damp clothes and hair but he doesn’t really notice. Draco is more confusing than ever, and he has literally no idea what he is supposed to do next.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Fourteenth of December**  – a picture frame  
  
  
  
When Harry opens his eyes, the rain is battering his bedroom window and his alarm clock is nowhere to be seen. After a brief struggle with Murdoch, the duvet and the extra blankets, he stumbles out of bed and slips on the sodding clock, skidding across the room and colliding with a hard wooden shelf. He steps back, clutching his shoulder, and several items crash onto the floor. Murdoch, now fully awake and wagging his tail happily, picks up the clock in his mouth and drops it at Harry’s feet.  
  
“Thank you,” he sighs, looking at the flapping tail and suddenly having a very good idea of how his clock ended up in the perfect place to be stood on. “Did you break it, you clumsy bugger? Yes – one of the hands has come off.”  
  
Murdoch sneezes, licks his face and bounds back onto the bed where he sits, gazing calmly at Harry with all four feet tucked underneath him. Harry casts  _Tempus_  and groans. He has, of course, overslept, and now has to hurry if he wants to make it to the Breakfast Barrel before Mike runs out of bacon. He turns to head for the shower and then stops, eyes caught by the objects knocked from the shelf. Most of them are fine—a handful of painted pebbles, a stuffed tailless cat from Blaise and Ginny’s trip to the Isle of Man, a drawing of Murdoch by Rose that has been printed onto canvas—but the most important thing of all, a photograph of his parents, waving out from a painted wooden frame, is badly damaged.  
  
Horrified, Harry crouches to pick up the broken frame and retrieve the largest shards of glass from the floor. The photograph itself, he is relieved to find, is bent but mostly intact. His parents smile up at him as if to say, ‘don’t panic, everything’s fine!’ and he clutches the picture to his chest for a moment, feeling daft and relieved and rather touched when Murdoch scrambles down from the bed to rest a cold nose on his shoulder.  
  
“Don’t come any further,” he says, remembering the shattered glass and hurrying to gather it with his wand.  
  
Carefully, he places the photograph on his chest of drawers and picks through the pieces of what had once been the first thing Teddy had ever made for him with magic. The joints are rough and haphazard and the impact with the floor has caused them to jolt apart into jagged pieces. Harry sighs and gathers the chunks of wood as best he can, getting to his feet and depositing them on the chest beside the photograph. He’s never been very good at detailed spellwork, especially with wood. He supposes he could ask Teddy for a new one but he’s so busy these days, getting ready for his OWLS and keeping up with a bewildering array of friends.  
  
As he gives up and gets into the shower, Harry remembers that Teddy won’t be coming home for the holidays this year, having persuaded his grandmother to take him skiing in the Alps. He smiles for a moment, imagining them slicing through the snow together, skidding and laughing, and then the water turns cold and he gets shampoo in his eye and he just feels fed up and old.  
  
Mike has not run out of bacon when Harry gets to the café, but the rain does not let up for a second and by the time Harry lets himself into Garrett’s, he, Murdoch, and their breakfasts are soaked. Irritated, he dumps the sandwiches on a table and dries himself and the daft dog with a careless charm that makes them both cough. Unimpressed, Murdoch walks away and collapses in the corner, where he is immediately the focus of several little round eyes. For a moment, he looks as though he is going to run away, and then he seems to give up, resting his head on his paws and regarding the whiffles with cautious interest.  
  
“Good morning,” Draco says brightly.  
  
Harry gazes at him in silence. There’s something rather odd about the scene; instead of crouching on the floor with eyeglass in place and tools in his mouth, Draco is sitting at a table, quill tucked behind his ear and hands full of official-looking paperwork. Harry’s heart speeds at the sight of it, and he stands frozen for a moment before he can get the words out.  
  
“Is that stuff from the Ministry?”  
  
Draco looks up, surprised. “No, it’s mine.”  
  
“It’s not from Seddon?”  
  
The grey eyes hold his for long seconds. “No,” Draco repeats, and then indicates the dining room. “It’s mine.”  
  
Harry lets out a messy breath and then smiles. “Oh, very funny. Do you want a slightly damp bacon sandwich?”  
  
“I’m not joking,” Draco says. “This whiffle-infested café now belongs to me. I bought it.”  
  
“Draco, you didn’t,” Harry whispers, looking around as though Mr Bobble is about to burst through the front door, yell ‘prank!’ and throw multicoloured pompoms everywhere.  
  
“I did, and it’s entirely your fault.”  
  
“What?” Harry asks, scrubbing at his damp hair and wondering how Draco can be so pleased with himself when he’s clearly gone mad.  
  
“Harry, I haven’t made an impulsive purchase in my life… I spent some time with you, and suddenly I am the owner of number one, Ashton Road, Blackwell-in-the-Fold,” Draco says proudly, fishing out a set of keys and setting them down in the midst of the paperwork.  
  
“When did you make that decision, exactly?”  
  
“I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, but I made my offer this morning and here we are.”  
  
“And you already have the keys?” Harry asks, still unable to process this decision.  
  
It’s been no secret that Draco has enjoyed being here, both in Garrett’s and in Blackwell in general, but he’s lost his mind.  
  
Draco just shrugs. “You’d be surprised what can be achieved when you offer the asking price in cash to someone who has been trying to offload a property for almost twenty years. I still have to sign some things but he couldn’t wait to give me the keys.”  
  
“How much did they want for it?” Harry hears himself asking, and he doesn’t know why he cares.  
  
“It was just a little stack of paper in the end,” Draco says. “I thought you might be pleased. Why do you look as though you’re going to shout at me and then vomit?”  
  
“I wasn’t planning on doing either,” Harry says, but he feels unsteady and very much like he should sit down. He’s not going to, though. He’s not going to sit at one of Draco’s tables in one of Draco’s chairs because Draco is the one going loopy, not him.  
  
“Harry, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Draco asks, folding his arms on top of his papers and fixing Harry with a look that demands answers.  
  
“I just… I’m worried you’re doing this because you lost your job,” he says at last.  
  
“I’d hardly be doing it if I was still employed at the Ministry, would I?” Draco snaps.  
  
“Do you have to be so literal?” Harry snaps back.  
  
Draco stands up and folds his arms. “Yes. Yes, I do.”  
  
“Fine, then I’ll rephrase it… do you think you’re doing this thing because you’re upset about being fired? If it’s just a reaction to that… trauma, you might regret it.”  
  
“Trauma?” Draco repeats, eyebrow flickering. “I don’t care about that ridiculous job. The Ministry can go and fuck themselves, and you are not my mother, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lecture me.”  
  
“I’m nothing like your mother, Draco,” Harry snaps, stung. “I’m here. I’m here every day and I would never abandon you to go wandering around the world with a horrible snob who’s never going to approve of anything you do.”  
  
As soon as the words are out, Harry regrets them, but his heart is pounding and his hands are balled into fists and all he can do is stare at Draco, who stares back, eyes burning and mouth slightly open.  
  
“Why would you even say that?” he asks at last, voice rough.  
  
“Because it’s true! And no, I shouldn’t have said it, but for fuck’s sake, Draco, you were an amazing SAT, you were brilliant at your job, and now you’ve bought a fucking café on a whim and what are you going to do? Give up everything you’ve trained for and sell tea and cakes? What are you trying to prove? Seddon screwed you over—don’t you want justice?” Harry demands, out of breath now and knowing he should stop.  
  
“I don’t even know where to start with that,” Draco admits, and he looks furious now. “Justice? You think I’ll get that from Seddon? You’re one to talk about her, you’ve barely been in the office this month because you’re hiding from her—I know it, you know it, and by this point, I’m sure she does, too.”  
  
Harry inhales sharply. The words hit hard and he knows they are true. A struggling part of him is desperate to climb down and agree, to apologise and to leave the café—Draco’s café—and start all over again, but he’s too riled, too full of indignation, and the excited crackle of the whiffles on the wall behind him just seems to agitate the rage under his skin.  
  
“If you’ve got a problem with the way I work, just come out and say it.”  
  
“I have no problem with you, Harry,” Draco says quietly. “I think you’ve got this all upside down.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m an idiot like that,” he snaps. “I’m sure that’s why I’m your best friend.”  
  
Draco stares at him, all colour draining from his face. “What?”  
  
“Maybe only when you’re drunk,” Harry suggests, dragging Murdoch away from the whiffles and grabbing the door handle. “I’m going to the office to do some work,” he adds, eyes and throat already stinging. “See you later.”  
  
“Go on, then, bugger off!” Draco shouts just before the door slams shut.  
  
“Having a disagreement, love?” Gladys asks from her front step.  
  
“Everything’s fine, Gladys!” he lies, striding past her and making it up the hill and into the woods in record time.  
  
He is just walking across the Ministry’s atrium with a confused Murdoch bounding at his side when he remembers that he has left his breakfast at Garrett’s. His stomach is churning and he is no longer in the mood for bacon but coffee sounds good, and coffee made by someone else sounds even better. He takes the lift down to the staff canteen and stands in the queue, already caught between anger and the very real feeling that he has acted like an idiot. He never should have mentioned Draco’s parents, however selfish their behaviour, but it had just come out, and now he can’t quite push Draco’s expression of betrayal out of his mind.  
  
“Heard you managed to get a Scamander round to look at your creatures,” someone says and Harry turns around to see Samreen standing in the queue behind him, smiling and balancing a cheese sandwich on a stack of files.  
  
“I did. Apparently, we have Scandinavian whiffles,” Harry says, and the automatic ‘we’ pulls at his heart.  
  
“Brilliant! Is it alright if I take you off the list, then?”  
  
“Yeah, of course. I’m sorry, Samreen, I didn’t think.”  
  
“It’s no problem,” she says, and nudges him with a smile. “Looks like the duck was right.”  
  
“The Christmas duck?”  
  
Samreen nods. “Take steps to make sure all your dreams come true? I realise that getting an ID from an expert probably doesn’t represent  _all_  your dreams, but it’s a start!”  
  
Harry laughs and it hurts. “I think I’ve got a long way to go.”  
  
“Better get up to your office and start making it all happen, then,” she teases. “Look sharp, you’re next."  
  
Harry says goodbye to Samreen, pays for his coffee and takes the lift to the Auror department. His office feels cold and neglected, so he lights a fire in the grate and chases Murdoch around the desk for a few minutes until they are both warm and breathing hard. Harry sits down and works through the pile of communication on his desk slowly and without enthusiasm. He keeps one eye on the door in case of Seddon, but no one comes.  
  
At lunchtime, he searches his desk drawers and finds an apple, a packet of crisps and a mysterious pot that has lost its label and turns out to contain vaguely cheese-flavoured noodles. He rehydrates them with water from the kettle and eats standing up, thinking of Mike’s fresh sandwiches and Gladys’s bakewell tarts. He wonders what Draco is eating, all alone in his new café, talking to whiffles and tinkering with his copper steam machine.  
  
“He’s gone mad,” Harry says firmly, and Murdoch wags his tail.  
  
“He’s completely sane and brilliant,” he offers, and Murdoch wags his tail.  
  
“You’re an idiot.”  
  
Murdoch wags his tail.  
  
By mid-afternoon, Harry has done more official Ministry work than he has done in the last couple of weeks put together. He feels a little bit proud of himself but mostly weary and irritable from trying not to think about what might be going on in Blackwell without him. His feet are numb because Murdoch is lying on them and he has started to draw whiffles on his blotting paper. When someone knocks at the door and then walks in without waiting to be invited, he is so relieved that he almost doesn’t care if it’s Seddon. Let her come.  
  
“Thought I saw you earlier,” Ron says, ambling in and creaking into Draco’s old chair.  
  
“I’ve been here all day,” Harry says proudly. “Move off my feet now, daft dog.”  
  
“Hello, Murdoch,” Ron cries, making an enormous fuss of the dog when he jumps up and plants his front feet on Ron’s knees. “As for you, I take it you’re only here because Seddon’s at that conference in Wales all day?”  
  
“I didn’t know.”  
  
“Living dangerously, then. I approve.” Ron pretends to pick something up and then pretends to throw it, sending Murdoch bounding into the corner of the office. “You don’t look too happy, mate.”  
  
Harry sighs. “You know Garrett’s?”  
  
“I’ve heard about it once or twice over the past couple of weeks, yeah,” Ron says.  
  
“Draco bought it.”  
  
Ron’s eyes go wide. “What?”  
  
“Yeah. Just walked in with keys this morning. Paid in cash, apparently, like you do.”  
  
“And you seem to be… very cross about that,” Ron says, eyebrows knitted.  
  
“I’m not cross, I’m just a bit… I just don’t think he’s thought it through,” Harry says firmly.  
  
“Oh, and you told him that, did you?”  
  
“Don’t… you’re making me sound like an idiot,” Harry says, dropping his head into one hand and peering at Ron with one eye.  
  
Ron laughs. “I know I wasn’t there, mate, but it seems like you don’t need me to help you with that. So… you fell out?”  
  
“You could say that,” Harry admits.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Harry sits up in his chair. “How is it good?”  
  
“Lets out some of the pressure, you know,” Ron says, turning an imaginary wheel with both hands. “Pshhhhh!”  
  
“Right,” Harry says with a reluctant smile. “I’m glad I asked.”  
  
“You doubt,” Ron says, “but I’ll have you know, the right argument and the right apology can cause wonderful things to happen.”  
  
Harry wonders if he is speaking from experience, and then he makes the steam sound again and Harry decides he can do without knowing.  
  
“I have to apologise.”  
  
“Probably. Why don’t you want him to have a café, anyway?”  
  
“It sounds awful when you put it like that,” Harry says, and god, he is a stupid wanker. “I suppose I’d just assumed that he’d get his job back here eventually and everything would go back to normal. It seemed so crazy to throw everything away and do something so impulsive…”  
  
Ron coughs loudly.  
  
“What?”  
  
“So, you’re not impulsive or crazy? No, you’re Harry Potter. You’re totally normal. Run-of-the-mill, in fact,” Ron says, gazing at Harry with more patience than he probably deserves.  
  
“Fuck you, Ron,” Harry mumbles. “You’re a good friend.”  
  
Ron grins. “Yeah, well. Look, you love him, don’t you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, and his scuffed-up heart thumps forcefully in his chest. “I really do.”  
  
“Well, first of all, don’t look at me like that, it’s disturbing,” Ron says with a shudder. “Second of all, leave him to cool off a bit and then get round there and say you’re sorry.”  
  
“That’s your official advice?”  
  
Ron stands up and rubs Murdoch’s ears before he heads for the door. “Yep. I am the god of advice. I dispense wisdom so that lesser mortals may conduct their relationships in tribute to—”  
  
“Bye, Ron,” Harry says, and looks at Murdoch. “What do you think?”  
  
Murdoch turns in a circle and then settles down to sleep on the rug.  
  
“Yeah, I agree.”  
  
Checking that darkness has fallen outside the window, Harry grabs a piece of parchment and scribbles out a note. Ron’s probably right about allowing some cooling off time, but some things just can’t wait another moment.  
  
_I’m sorry. I was a wanker. Can we talk tomorrow?_  
  
He attaches the note to the leg of one of the department owls and asks her nicely to wait for a reply. It comes just as he is getting ready to leave the office for the day. He reads it and smiles.  
  
_Yes. I’m sorry, too. Bring breakfast._


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Fifteenth of December**  – a robin  
  
  
  
Harry and Murdoch step out into a pink and orange Grimmauld place, ready for a walk through the park before Blackwell, breakfast, and apologies. Despite the flutter of nerves and guilt in his stomach, Harry feels cautiously optimistic, and an early morning wander will be good for both of them. When something swoops in over the rooftops and starts hammering at the window three storeys above his head, he looks up in confusion.  
  
“That’s my bedroom,” he tells the owl, who continues to peck at the glass with such ferocity that Harry thinks it might crack. “I’m not in there! I’m down here!”  
  
The owl peers down at him, head twisting to fix him with huge yellow eyes.  
  
“If you’ve got something for Harry Potter, I’m down here!” he tries, doing his best to keep his voice down.  
  
The last thing he needs is for his Muggle neighbours to come out in their pyjamas and see him trying to reason with an owl. He waves his arms. Murdoch adds a helpful bark. The owl doesn’t move.  
  
“What do you want? Do I need to pay for the letter?” Harry fishes around in his coat pocket and shows the owl and handful of gold, bronze and silver. The owl appears unmoved. “Er… I’ve got a Polo mint?” he tries, now searching all his pockets. “Or…” He pulls out a crumpled paper bag and looks inside. “… a bit of pastry from a sausage roll?”  
  
The owl shuffles from one side of the windowsill to the other and then takes flight, swooping down to the doorstep and allowing Harry to take the letter in exchange for the leftover pastry. Murdoch stretches on his lead and gives the owl a curious sniff, only to receive a peck on the nose for his trouble.  
  
“Hey, leave my dog alone!” Harry scolds, stepping between the owl and the Murdoch and glaring until the bird takes off and disappears from view. “Never mind, Murdo,” he says, stuffing the letter into his pocket and crouching down to the dog’s level to examine his nose. There doesn’t seem to be any damage, but Harry mends his dented pride by ruffling his triangular ears and telling the daft dog that some owls are grumpy bastards and not to be worried about.  
  
By the time they have completed their walk through the park and made their way to the Breakfast Barrel, Murdoch is back in high spirits and is only too delighted to be tied up outside when he spots his friends, Serena and Brendan. While Harry waits in the queue for his turn, he pulls out the letter and smiles with relief when he recognises his niece’s large, neat handwriting. When he opens the envelope, red and silver glitter showers his coat. There is also a note, which he unfolds first.  
  
_Harry,_  
  
_I wanted to explain why Rose didn’t just give you this card on Sunday. She really wanted to send it ‘properly’, and then Hugo got involved and wanted to see ‘LOTS of owls’, so despite having quite a few in the family, we are now all at the post office. Rose has already chosen a ‘no rush’ owl because it looked sad. Hugo is telling everyone that he wants to tie the letter on himself because he can tie his own shoes now. Hermione says all of this is very educational._  
  
_Merry Christmas, mate._  
  
_Ron._  
  
Amused, Harry tucks away the note and glances over his shoulder at Murdoch, who he imagines would have something to say about the ‘sad’ owl that bit his nose. Mike gives him a curious look and it takes him a moment to remember the glitter.  
  
“My niece made me a Christmas card,” he explains, pulling out the card and scattering sparkles all over the counter. He shows the card to Mike. “Sorry.”  
  
“It’s good,” he says with a slow smile. “Do you want the usual?”  
  
“Yes, please,” Harry says, oddly pleased by this idea.  
  
Mike turns away and Harry looks at the card. Rose has rendered a fat, almost spherical robin in vivid poster paints and bright red glitter, using sequins for eyes and furry pipe cleaners to create the legs. The breast shines so brightly in the softly lit café that the robin seems to puff up in sparkly pride. Fingers now covered in glitter, Harry opens the card and finds a message written in scarlet felt-tip pen.  
  
_Dear Uncle Harry,_  
  
_Please have a happy Christmas and a happy New Year and do all the things that make you happy. Thank you for taking me and Hugo for a nice day out. I love you._  
  
_From Rose xxxx_  
  
_PS Also from Hugo, because he hasn’t made any cards yet._  
  
Harry smiles to himself, touched by the sentiment but also a little alarmed by the repeated instruction to ‘be happy’. He wonders if Rose thinks he is miserable, and the idea twists his heart.  
  
“Enjoy,” Mike says, handing over his teas and sandwiches in a bag, and Harry takes them, carefully tucking away the card and his concerns along with it.  
  
One thing at a time, he tells himself, thanking Mike, retrieving Murdoch, and walking slowly to Garrett’s. He is just wondering whether he should open with ‘I’m sorry, Draco, I’m such a stupid prick’ or try something softer when he opens the door and stops dead.  
  
“What the hell is that smell?” he asks, wrinkling his nose as something violently floral assaults his nostrils. He has smelled something like it before but never in such an intense concentration, and it’s all he can do not to step back out into the street and slam the door behind him.  
  
“Dusky rose,” Draco says without looking up from his task, which appears to involve measuring whiffles one by one with a pair of callipers.  
  
The little creatures have formed a queue around him that spirals out around the floor and are waiting so nicely that Harry almost forgets about the awful smell.  
  
“How did you get them to do that?” he asks, and then shudders. “No, really, what is that smell?”  
  
Draco looks up from his position on the floor. “They think it’s a game. And it’s a melting wax thing called ‘dusky rose’. Gladys thought it might help with the mildew smell in here.”  
  
“It doesn’t smell of mildew in here,” Harry says, none the wiser.  
  
“I know that, but she insisted on following me in and showing me how it works. Fortunately, these little buggers were milling around in the walls, so all she heard was a bit of crackling.” Draco ruffles a hand through his hair and smiles at the floor. “I told her it was the radio. She offered to take it next door and have Bob look at it. He used to be a television engineer, did you know that?”  
  
“No,” Harry says, and this time, when he wants to sit on the floor beside Draco, he does, copying his legs-crossed posture and watching the whiffles bouncing forward to be measured.  
  
He takes one sandwich and one cup of tea from the bag and then passes it to Draco, who puts down his callipers and notebook and meets Harry’s eyes.  
  
“Thank you,” he says quietly, and Harry’s nerves come rushing back, pulling him tight and strangling every useful word before it has even been formed.  
  
Draco is just looking at him and he has never felt more stupid or awkward in his life.  
  
“You’re sorry I’m such a prick,” he says, all in a rush.  
  
Draco frowns. “What?”  
  
Harry flushes and puts down his tea. He has the feeling that if he tries to drink it right now, he’ll end up throwing it down his front or accidentally tipping it over Murdoch’s head. He takes a deep breath, avoiding Draco’s eyes and letting his gaze rest on the whiffles, who have broken free of their queue and are now gathered around Harry, Draco and Murdoch in a little sea of pointy iridescence and beady spherical eyes.  
  
Draco rests his hands in his lap, strong fingers and nails slightly bitten. There’s a bit of rubber tubing around his wrist, no doubt saved for later, and his forearms are exposed by shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. They’re good forearms, Harry thinks. Good hands, strong where they have touched him rarely and not nearly enough. His own hands clench in his lap and he looks up to find Draco regarding him with anxiety, eyebrows drawn down and lip caught in his teeth.  
  
“I’ll try that again,” Harry says. His mouth is arid but he still doesn’t trust himself with the tea. “Draco, I’m really sorry for the things I said yesterday, especially the thing I said about your parents. That was really rude and it’s none of my business how they behave.”  
  
“You weren’t wrong,” Draco says, removing the top from his own tea and sipping it.  
  
Surprised, Harry catches his breath. “I shouldn’t have said it.”  
  
Draco shrugs. “Maybe not, but I had all day to think about it, and I think the reason I was so angry was that you were right. My parents are selfish. My father would think I was ridiculous for opening a café. I’ve never done anything that really impressed him and the easiest way to deal with that has always been not to think about it.”  
  
“I’m sorry I made you think about it,” Harry offers, feeling useless and hating it.  
  
Draco almost smiles. “I probably needed to think about it.”  
  
“Will you let me apologise for something?” Harry says, and when he hears the words out loud, he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or hex himself in the face.  
  
“I don’t need you to apologise any more,” Draco says, picking at the piece of rubber around his wrist and looking at the whiffle that has seen fit to perch on his knee. “If you could understand, that would be a big help.”  
  
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, he risks picking up the tea. “I can do that.”  
  
“I know what happened to me at the Ministry was wrong. I think I knew it was going to happen from the moment I met Seddon, but I stayed, even when it got worse, because I wanted to prove that I could be good at my job,” Draco says.  
  
“To who?”  
  
“To myself. To Seddon, on some level. To my father. I wanted to prove all of us wrong and do something right.”  
  
“Draco, you were a great SAT,” Harry says.  
  
Draco lifts an eyebrow. “I was a  _brilliant_  SAT,” he says. “But I think we know that was never the problem.”  
  
“Seddon,” Harry sighs.  
  
Draco snorts. “Me. I told you that I’m not very good at reading people. I never have been. My father liked to use threats to make me into a better Malfoy, whatever that meant. Seddon never made sense to me. She says one thing and means another, and she smiles whether she’s giving you a compliment or dressing you down. I never knew what to do with her and I think that just made her hate me more.”  
  
“I don’t understand her, either,” Harry says, and then stops. “I suppose what I mean is, some people aren’t worth trying to understand.”  
  
Draco gives him a weak smile. “Perhaps not. I was angry when she fired me, of course. It wasn’t fair. It still isn’t. But I think actually… I’m relieved.”  
  
“Because you can do what you want now?”  
  
“I can be who I want now,” Draco says, eyes warm on Harry’s for long, agonising seconds.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says roughly. “That’s good.”  
  
“This wasn’t the plan, you know, but sometimes, I think life offers you something strange and you have to take it.” Draco picks up a whiffle and holds it gently until its points soften and its eye spins around contentedly. “I didn’t wake up one morning and think ‘I really want to own a café’ but in the end, I thought, why the fuck not? What will happen to all these pointy little buggers if we just leave at the end of the mission? Most of them have never even seen Scandinavia—they live here. Someone has to look after them.”  
  
“You’re mad,” Harry says admiringly. He puts his tea down and rubs at his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can take another second of this.”  
  
Drawing his wand, he casts an impervious bubble around the scent burner and flings open every window in the place. The cold air rushes in and causes the whiffles to crowd in pointily around them, but the scent of winter is wonderfully cleansing, and soon the sickly rose stench begins to dissipate.  
  
“Why are you covered in glitter?” Draco asks.  
  
Harry pulls the card from his pocket and hands it to Draco. “Rose made it at the library.”  
  
“It’s very festive. Shall I put it with the others?” Draco asks, getting to his feet.  
  
“What others?”  
  
“We’ve been getting them for a few days,” Draco says, and Harry follows him over to the counter, where four other Christmas cards are on display.  
  
“I hadn’t even noticed.”  
  
“You miss a lot when you’re worrying all the time,” Draco says, setting the robin card next to the others.  
  
Harry frowns. “You should read what she wrote.”  
  
Draco picks up the card again and scans the interior. “What about it?”  
  
“She keeps telling me to be happy. Do you think she’s trying to tell me that she thinks I’m an unhappy person? And apparently, you think I’m a worrier. Do  _you_  think I’m an unhappy person?” Harry asks, watching the expressions flit across Draco’s face until he seems to settle on ‘patient’.  
  
“I think she’s eight years old and she wants you to have a nice Christmas. I think you worry too much, and…” Draco pauses, mouth twisting as he thinks. “I think you have been a happier person than you are now.”  
  
“Oh,” Harry says, surprised. “Is this about what you said yesterday?”  
  
“About you hiding from Seddon? Yes,” Draco says, picking up his callipers and retaking his place on the floor. He waits, and before long, the whiffles reform their line around him.  
  
“How do you know which ones you’ve already measured?” Harry asks, completely distracted by the crackling, bouncing mass. “And why are you measuring them anyway?”  
  
“I’m trying to design a shield for the steam machine that will let whiffles in around it but confine the steam to a dedicated area of the room,” Draco says, and then hisses. “Points in, please. And I don’t know which ones I’ve already measured because, as usual, you walked in and chaos resulted.”  
  
“Sorry,” Harry says. “Can you tell them apart from each other yet?”  
  
“Sometimes,” Draco says, letting out an exasperated sound when Murdoch wanders over and once again disrupts the whole process. “Like owner, like dog,” he mumbles, and then gives Harry a sharp look. “Stop ruining my apology.”  
  
“Er… sorry?”  
  
Draco sighs. “I apologise for what I said and the way I said it, but now you’ve asked, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t think you like being an Auror at all. I think you’d be happier if you did something else.”  
  
“Right,” Harry says, taken aback by this unvarnished statement. “And what do you think I should be doing—working in a café?”  
  
“There’s an apron with your name on it if you want it,” Draco says, clearly amused.  
  
“You’re really going to do this,” Harry says, and it isn’t a question.  
  
“I really think I am.”  
  
“I can be a lot more supportive,” Harry promises. “I know it’s no excuse but I was in a filthy mood yesterday. Someone smashed my alarm clock, and then I broke the picture frame Teddy made me and then the shower—that’s it!” he cries, sitting up straight. “Gladys’s rose thing smells exactly like my awful shower gel!”  
  
Draco looks up slowly. “Why do you have shower gel that smells like old ladies?”  
  
“It’s not my normal one,” Harry says. “I got it by mistake once. The bottles are very similar. Are you laughing at me?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Draco promises, but when he bends over his next whiffle, his shoulders are shaking.  
  
“Kindly go and fuck yourself,” Harry says, basking in the lightened atmosphere.  
  
“If by ‘go and fuck yourself’ you meant ‘would you like some help, Draco?’, you can pick up that spare set of callipers and start measuring from the other end of the queue,” Draco says, and Harry is content to obey.  
  
By the time the light begins to fade for the day, every whiffle has been measured, weighed, and recorded in Draco’s notebook. The steam machine has been tested and re-tested with various magical fields, Harry has met Gladys at the door just in time on two occasions and supplied Draco with tea and bakewells, and Murdoch has become an unwitting whiffle transport device, spending much of the afternoon walking around the shop with a group of excitable pointy creatures on his back.  
  
“Hey, daft dog,” Harry calls, catching Murdoch investigating the shoes that Draco abandoned hours ago in the corner of the room. “If you ruin Draco’s laces, the replacement is coming out of your treat budget.”  
  
“They are very fancy laces, Murder Face,” Draco says, flipping through a pile of paperwork regarding the purchase of Garrett’s.  
  
Murdoch ignores them and Harry gets up to drag him away, pausing when he sees what looks very much like an owl sitting on the windowsill.  
  
“You might want to rescue your laces, Draco—I’m just going to check this out,” he says, stepping out into the chilly evening air and feeling his stomach drop when he sees his name and the Ministry logo stamped on the envelope the owl is carrying.  
  
He takes the letter in silence and steps back into the warm café.  
  
“Two owls in one day?” Draco asks, looking up with mild curiosity.  
  
“One would have been fine,” Harry says.  
  
He takes a deep breath and slides his finger under the flap of the envelope, pulling out a sheet of parchment and scanning the words.  
  
_Dear Mr Potter,_  
  
_Please accept this letter as a reminder that your progress meeting for the case GARRETT’S CAFÉ 24DFE will take place on the 16 th of December at 10AM with Vanessa Seddon. We are advised that you have failed to reply to multiple memos on the subject and would like to impress upon you the importance of attending this appointment, which will also serve as your ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW. Please bring all relevant documentation, along with any issues you would like to discuss._  
  
_All the best,_  
  
_Hortensia Giggleswick, assistant to Vanessa Seddon._  
  
“Don’t tell me,” Draco says. “You’ve been sacked, too.”  
  
Harry stares at him, insides in knots. “No, just a meeting,” he says, folding the letter away and stuffing it into his pocket.  
  
He’s not going to let Seddon and her bullshit get all over this place. He’ll just go to the meeting, get through the part where he wants to strangle Seddon with her own motivational posters, and then be back here in time for lunch. That being said, he has no idea where he managed to hide the relevant documentation after last year’s meeting, and a little bit of preparation certainly can’t hurt.  
  
“I have to go,” he says.  
  
Draco pulls Murdoch across the room by his collar and presents him to Harry.  
  
“Take this with you. They were very nice laces.”  
  
Harry glances at the dog. “Not good, Murdo,” he says vaguely, and clips him onto his lead.  
  
“Are you alright?” Draco asks, and his concern makes Harry ache.  
  
“Yeah. I’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll bring lunch if you want.” He steps out onto the street, distracted by Gladys’s gaudy Christmas lights. “You should get a tree.”  
  
Draco smiles at him, and Harry lets the sensation of warmth and belonging wrap around him. He thinks he’s going to need it.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Sixteenth of December**  – a yule log  
  
  
  
Seddon is late.  
  
Harry has already been sitting in the corridor outside her office for fifteen minutes when she breezes into the department, has a chat to her assistant and then disappears into the office for a further ten minutes. By the time she calls for him, he is thoroughly fed up, washed out from an evening’s searching for paperwork and a fractured night’s sleep, and he returns her faux-friendly greeting from between gritted teeth.  
  
“Have a seat, Harry. I just came from a meeting with the Minister,” she adds, as though the explanation should serve as apology for her lateness. “Oh, you remembered to bring your documents—well done!”  
  
Harry sits in the chair opposite hers and hands her the papers in silence, biting his tongue hard in an effort to keep his thoughts on the inside. Seddon directs a cursory glance at the documents and then turns back to him, hands folded on the desk and head tilted to one side.  
  
“We have a lot to get through this morning, Harry,” she says, and his heart sinks. “Let’s start with your case in Blackwell-on-the-Heath, shall we?”  
  
“Blackwell-in-the-Fold,” he corrects automatically, and Seddon’s bland smile wavers. It feels good. “My progress reports up to and including yesterday are at the bottom of that pile. I’ve now submitted a final report to summarise and close the case, which you should receive in the next day or two.”  
  
Seddon tilts her head again and her blonde curls bounce. “I’m sorry, why are you closing the case? I can’t imagine you’ve managed to resolve the magical creature threat in such a short time.”  
  
“It’s not a threat,” Harry says firmly. “An expert has assessed the situation and deemed the creatures harmless, and besides—”  
  
“A Ministry expert hasn’t,” Seddon interrupts, smile slowly returning.  
  
Harry takes a deep breath. “No, but as I was about to say, it’s all pretty much irrelevant now as the property has been taken over by a wizard who is willing to care for the creatures. Garrett’s is now a private residence and my report echoes that. It’s nothing to do with us any more.”  
  
Seddon stares at him hard for several seconds and then appears to change tack.  
  
“Would you like a piece of cake, Harry?” she asks, indicating a plate on the desk.  
  
Blindsided, Harry just looks at the cake. It appears to be a Yule log, or perhaps it started out that way. He can just about see the characteristic lines in the chocolate icing underneath sprigs of plastic holly, little silver balls and a blizzard of edible snow. On top sits a gleaming rendering of the words ‘Merry Christmas’ and the end slice sits apart from the rest next to an etched golden knife. He can taste the overpowering sweetness in the air and it doesn’t help the fact that he already feels sick.  
  
“Er, no thanks,” he says, and Seddon almost seems to scowl.  
  
“You said the property has been taken over by a wizard. Is this, by any chance, Draco Malfoy?”  
  
“It’s all in the notes,” Harry says, infuriated by her tone. “I’m not sure why it matters, though.”  
  
“Conflict of interest, perhaps?” she says with a condescending smile.  
  
“No conflict of interest,” Harry says, suddenly appreciative of those extra hours the night before spent scanning his Auror handbooks and legal guides. “Draco was not working for the Ministry at the time of investigation or the time of purchase. Even if he had been, he was not my manager or team member, and I was not his. All of this is above board, I assure you.”  
  
Seddon says nothing for a moment, and the look of surprise on her face makes Harry want to smile. But he doesn’t. He maintains a carefully neutral expression and waits, eyes flicking around the room and taking in Seddon’s collection of posters.  
  
_We are one, but one is not we._  
  
_Organisation is the glue for imagination’s house of cards._  
  
_It takes many ingredients to make a cake, but without the recipe, all is chaos._  
  
When he gives up and focuses on her again, he realises that she has started talking and he has no idea when that happened.  
  
“… poor communication, Harry; it just won’t do. I expect my Aurors to respond to memos in a timely fashion because, well…” She pauses and affects a little giggle. “If we don’t, the department could just fall to pieces. And on the subject of the department, Harry, I’ve had Hortensia recording your hours this week and her report makes rather shocking reading.”  
  
“I’ve been at Garrett’s. Working on the case,” he says, but she doesn’t seem to be listening.  
  
“The thing is Harry, I know you can do better than this. I know you can be a good Auror and I want to help you to make the best of yourself,” she says, but Harry isn’t paying attention any more.  
  
He is looking around at her office, her pressed flowers on the walls, her insipid posters and her overdecorated yule log. He is thinking about the dining room at Garrett’s with its soft oil lamps and steam machines, about Gladys’s tea trays and Joe’s rainbow hair. His time in that comfortable little world is over; it’s time to return to an office without Draco in it and run around after greedy criminals who don’t give a shit about anything, all overseen by this nodding dog of a woman who is so fake that even Murdoch can’t stand her.  
  
All he wants to do is stand up and walk out, just leave the whole miserable mess behind. He can’t, of course, but as he sits there, pretending to be somewhere else, all he can think is:  _who’s going to stop you?_  
  
She is still talking, and Harry can tell by the set of her mouth that she isn’t happy, but that’s fine, because he isn’t happy, either. His head is full of Draco’s blunt words and glittery robins and instructions from a little girl who puts up with more than most but smiles anyway, and his heart almost beats out of his chest with the ridiculous enormity of the thing he’s about to do. His hands shake, so he laces his fingers together and grips hard, waiting for Seddon to take a breath.  
  
“… so, what we’re going to do is put together a special action plan for you, and together I think we can work on improving your performance,” she says, and finally falls silent.  
  
Harry takes his chance. “Thanks for that, Nessa, but I’m not going to waste your time. I haven’t been a great Auror for a while now, and the reason is that I don’t enjoy it. So, I’m not going to do it any more. Please consider this my resignation, and if you check with Hortensia, you’ll see that I have more than enough unused holiday time to cover any notice period.”  
  
Still shaking, he rises and Seddon gapes up at him. “Excuse me?” she manages after a moment. “What on earth… you can’t just leave. We’re in the middle of a performance evaluation!”  
  
“I’m going now,” Harry says, feeling curiously light and untethered, like an escaped balloon. He shakes her hand. “I wish I could say it had been a pleasure working with you, but that would be a lie. You know, I think I will have a piece of cake after all.”  
  
He picks up the end slice of yule log and bites into it, pulling the door open.  
  
“This is all about Malfoy, isn’t it?” Seddon calls after him, but he ignores her, leaving her office door wide open and half-stumbling, half-jogging away down the corridor.  
  
“Harry! No running in the corridors!” jokes a familiar deep voice, and he turns, cake still in hand, to see Kingsley striding towards him.  
  
“Minister… Kingsley… good to see you,” he says, attempting to hide the fact that he feels like he might burst at any moment.  
  
“It’s been too long,” Kingsley says, patting Harry on the shoulder with a massive hand. He frowns. “Are you alright? You don’t look too well.”  
  
“I’m fine,” he lies, and then a bubble of honesty pops in his chest and he can barely breathe. “I don’t know. I’m leaving. You should talk to Seddon… I mean, if you want to. You know,” he says, pulling a piece of plastic holly from his mouth, “I don’t think I was supposed to eat this part. Tell you what—I’ve got a couple of reports to send you that might make interesting reading when you’ve got a minute. Anyway, I’ve got to go—I have to help to fix a whiffle steam machine.”  
  
Before Kingsley has a chance to respond, Harry is walking away, shoving the rest of the chocolate cake into his mouth and hurrying back to his office to retrieve Murdoch. The moment they arrive in Blackwell, they are pelted from what seems like every direction by tiny, stinging ice crystals, and the journey over the hill and into town is turned into a battle between man, dog, and weather. By the time they dash across the road to Garrett’s, every bit of Harry’s exposed skin is red and smarting, and the hailstones are collecting in his collar and hair.  
  
He opens the door just as Draco is walking down the stairs from the flat, and they regard each other with interest. Harry hangs onto the door handle with one wet, cold hand and takes in Draco’s ruffled hair, rolled up sleeves, and the three whiffles clinging to his left trouser leg. Draco pauses on the stairs, eyes flicking over a hailstone-studded Murdoch and then lingering on Harry’s face.  
  
“I knew you’d forget lunch,” he says, mouth flickering. “Do you want to go to Mike’s?”  
  
“I quit,” Harry says, heart racing out of control. “I left. Right in the middle of my performance evaluation.”  
  
For several long seconds, Draco says nothing, and then he walks down the rest of the stairs, through the dining room and over to the door, where he slides his fingers into Harry’s wet hair and kisses him. Stiff with shock, Harry tries to catch his breath and grips the door handle so hard that it begins to creak. Draco pulls back, withdrawing his fingers and flushing.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Please don’t be,” Harry manages in a rough whisper. “I was just surprised.”  
  
Draco stares at him, eyes bright in the lamplight, practically vibrating with uncertainty. Harry knows that he has to make the move and it doesn’t matter how confused and off-balance he feels right now; this is everything and he cannot let it go.  
  
“Please,” he repeats, releasing the door and cupping Draco’s jaw with both hands. He shivers.  
  
“Did you really quit?” Draco asks as their lips brush for the second time.  
  
“Yeah. It was brilliant,” Harry whispers, and then falls silent, closing his eyes and pouring himself into the kiss, shuddering when Draco presses close and his body heat bleeds through Harry’s damp coat.  
  
Every movement, every contact is tentative at first, making Harry ache harder and long for more, even as he balances on the edge of too much and  _just like this_ , cool fingertips on his face and citrus-sugar-almonds on his tongue. He’s been waiting five years for this moment and he’s not about to stop kissing Draco, even when the wind picks up and blows a storm of hailstones around them. He can feel the little balls of ice melting inside his coat, slipping over his hot skin and creating a shudder that makes Draco laugh against his mouth.  
  
“Do you think we should… perhaps… shut the door?” he asks, pulling back and regarding Harry with warm, silvery eyes.  
  
Harry nods stupidly, looking around for Murdoch, who seems to have disappeared entirely. The whiffles, on the other hand, have gathered around them in a curious, swivelling pool.  
  
“Where did he go?” Harry asks, attempting to move and finding every step hampered by pointy little voyeurs.  
  
“I don’t know,” Draco says, and when he, too, tries to take a step, his usual grace seems to have deserted him.  
  
“I think this is yours, love,” Gladys calls, appearing in the doorway with her hand around Murdoch’s collar. She stares at the whiffles, and for a moment, they stare back, before seeming to disappear into the floor. “Good lord.”  
  
Panic floods Harry’s bewildered brain. He reaches into his coat for his wand, but to his surprise, Gladys holds up a hand and stops him.  
  
“You can keep that thing away from me, young man,” she says stridently, slamming the door closed on the hail and releasing Murdoch, who runs to Harry’s side. “I know what you’re thinking and you can leave my memory alone. It’s bad enough at my age.”  
  
Harry glances at Draco, gratified to see that he looks just as startled and also has his hand resting at his wand pocket.  
  
“What exactly are you talking about, Gladys?”  
  
“Magic,” she whispers, stuffing her hands into her apron pockets. “I was trying to ask you the other day, remember? I had a feeling. You both are magic and so are them things I just saw.”  
  
“You’re a witch?” Draco asks, and she laughs.  
  
“No. I come from a big family of Muggles, but my brother Dennis… he was like you,” she says, eyes crinkling with amusement. “He got a letter from an owl and went off to school in Scotland. Right character, he was, always giving us exploding sweets and laughing his head off. Learned a lot about magic stuff, we did. He died in the war, bless his soul, but I remember all of it.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Harry says, still attempting to process this information on top of everything else that has happened since he got up this morning. “He sounds like a great brother.”  
  
“That he was,” Gladys agrees. “Now, I didn’t keep up with everything after Dennis passed, but I’ve done a bit of research since, and I know all about you two.”  
  
Draco rakes a nervous hand into his hair. Harry’s fingers itch to touch him.  
  
“Did you… erm… find anything interesting?” Harry asks.  
  
“Important, aren’t you?” Gladys says, peering at each of them in turn. “Working for the Ministry?”  
  
“Well, we used to,” Harry says with a little jerk of pleasure. “Now we’re just… us.”  
  
“Dennis hated that place,” Gladys confides. “Now listen, are you going to buy this shop or not? I’ve heard far less bumps in the night since you two turned up, and whatever them things are, they’re obviously happier with you around.”  
  
“It’s done, Gladys,” Draco says, and his genuine smile wraps around Harry’s heart.  
  
“Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs,” she says, beaming.  
  
“Is that a good thing?” Draco asks.  
  
Gladys cackles. “You’d best brush up on your northern if you’re going to stay.” She looks around at the little tables and abandoned paper cups and discarded shoes. “You’ve got a lot of work to do if you want to get this open by Christmas.”  
  
Draco and Harry exchange glances.  
  
“I wasn’t planning on rushing things,” Draco says. “I thought I might aim for a springtime opening.”  
  
“Spring?” Gladys repeats, scandalised. “Christmas Eve, that’s when you want to be open. They have a fete at the primary school in the morning, then everyone will be looking for somewhere to have a cup of tea and a cake.”  
  
“Christmas Eve is only a week away,” Harry points out, feeling rather disoriented now.  
  
“Eight days,” Gladys corrects, as if this makes all the difference.  
  
_You’re mad_ , Harry thinks to himself.  _You’re a very nice, mad old bat._  
  
“Well, if we have so much to do, we’d better get on with it,” Draco says smoothly, ushering Gladys back towards the door. “We’ll see you soon.”  
  
“Good,” she says, bustling out into the street, where the hailstones immediately decorate her light blue curls. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep everything to myself. Your secret’s safe with me!”  
  
When the door finally closes behind her, Harry lets out a long, messy sigh.  
  
“Well, that was… I don’t know what that was. I’m confused,” he admits, and then smiles. “But I think it’s all pretty brilliant.”  
  
He sits on the bottom step and Draco sits beside him. For a long time, there is silence, and they wait, fingers linked together, for the whiffles to return. The scout whiffle appears first, swivelling his oculus and travelling around the floor in small, controlled bounces. Murdoch sniffs him, and he seems to shiver before disappearing and reappearing with several hundred friends in tow, all of whom gather around the dog in a watchful circle.  
  
“Should I apologise for surprising you?” Draco says.  
  
Harry shakes his head. “Should I apologise for wanting to do that for a very long time and never having the guts?”  
  
“A very long time?” Draco asks, lifting an eyebrow.  
  
Harry sighs and rubs at his heated face. “An embarrassingly long time. Everyone knows.”  
  
“I didn’t know. I could never understand what you were feeling about anything,” Draco admits, leaning back on the steps on his elbows and stretching out his leg to press against Harry’s.  
  
“I thought I was an open book,” Harry says, turning to meet his eyes and finding himself caught in a rush of warmth.  
  
“Perhaps, if the book was in medieval Latin.”  
  
Harry grins. “Well, now I feel fancy.”  
  
“Good,” Draco says, sitting up abruptly and scanning the room with narrowed eyes. “We could do fancy.”  
  
“Draco, what are you talking about?” Harry asks, startled by how relaxed he suddenly feels. For the first time in a long time, everything just feels right, and it doesn’t matter what they’re saying about him at the Ministry or what madness Draco is about to suggest, because actually, he’s on top of the fucking world.  
  
“If we do want to get this place ready for Christmas Eve, we need to do something about the way it looks,” Draco says.  
  
Harry gazes at him calmly. “You’re not actually going to listen to her, are you?”  
  
Draco turns to him, all elegant lines and sudden, manic energy.  
  
“We can still open next year, but what if we had one day, right before Christmas, when everyone could come and see what the place is like now? It’s been empty for years, everyone thinks it’s haunted… we can show them what Garrett’s is going to be, and by the time we open for real, people will be dying to come,” Draco says, gesturing wildly and making Harry smile.  
  
“Eight days, Draco,” he says, sitting up and raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Is it really possible?”  
  
“Of course it is,” Draco says. “We have magic, we have Gladys, we have… that man who does things.”  
  
Harry laughs. “Yeah, I suppose we’ll need someone who can ‘do things’.”  
  
“Are you making fun of me? Do I need to kiss you again?” Draco asks, hands on hips.  
  
“Yes,” Harry says solemnly.  
  
He wades through the ocean of whiffles and pulls Draco close, losing himself in the pure relief of their connection, the brush of Draco’s lips against his neck and the gentle warming and drying charm that settles over him like a soft blanket.  
  
“I waited, too,” Draco whispers into his hair. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you how long.”  
  
“Okay,” Harry says, and kisses him again.  
  
He has the strangest feeling that there’s a whiffle in his pocket. He pretends not to notice.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Seventeenth of December**  – a frozen puddle  
  
  
  
After a few distracted false starts, the planning session begins in earnest, and when Draco goes next door with the tea tray and returns with a large pot of coffee and a stack of cherry bakewells, Harry prepares for a late night. They spread out on the floor with parchment and pencils, scribbling and scratching out idea after increasingly ridiculous idea until the whole thing becomes a blur in Harry’s mind of crumpled paper, pale, dishevelled hair, sugar and pastry and shimmering blue points everywhere they shouldn’t be.  
  
When things become fraught, he leans over and kisses Draco’s cross mouth, thrilled with the newness of being allowed to do so and pressing close and breathless until he forgets all about the reality of cooking without magic or the intimidating task of getting the café’s electricity reconnected.  
  
“I’ll sort it,” he promises, and Draco’s fingers slip under his t-shirt in such a way that Harry wonders for a moment if he hasn’t accidentally said something far more interesting.  
  
They part ways just after midnight, brushing kisses and breathing in the cold, thrilling scent of the frozen earth of Blackwell’s woodland. Harry picks up Murdoch and holds him tight, wanting desperately to grab Draco’s hand and pull them all back to number twelve together but equally desperate not to rush this, any of this.  
  
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Draco says, smile flickering as he Disapparates.  
  
“Today,” Harry tells Murdoch. “He’ll see us today.”  
  
Feeling wonderfully unsteady, he makes the jump back to Grimmauld Place and wanders up to bed, already lost in a dream. He wakes, seemingly minutes later, to Murdoch licking his sleeve. Realising his is still fully dressed, he shrugs, throws off his clothes, and scrubs himself in a haze of mint and eucalyptus, barely noticing when the daft dog steals his towel and tries to trip him on the landing. He flings his Auror robes out of his wardrobe with a stab of childish delight and pulls on his favourite jeans and a jumper made of dark green wool, worn soft with age.  
  
He glances back at the pile of robes and wonders if he should call Ron and Hermione. A lot has changed in the last twenty-four hours and he knows it’s only a matter of time before the news breaks about his departure from the Ministry. He hesitates, torn between the grown-up thing to do and the chance to keep it all to himself for just a little bit longer.  
  
Eventually, feeling rebellious, he turns his back on the lot of it and Apparates to Blackwell with Murdoch. He collects his usual from the Breakfast Barrel and waves to Craig as he pulls up in a white van.  
  
“I’ve seen the sign,” he says, winding down his window and resting his arm on the frame.  
  
“What sign?” Harry asks, taking a step closer and skidding violently on a patch of ice.  
  
“Careful,” Craig says mildly.  
  
Harry laughs, righting himself and then plunging his foot through the ice into a puddle so cold that the shock steals his breath.  
  
“Fuck,” he hisses, yanking his foot out of the puddle and stepping onto a safe section of pavement. The cold water is already climbing up the leg of his jeans, but even as the inevitable violent shiver travels through him, he smiles. He can’t help it.  
  
“You’re in a good mood,” Craig says with a knowing smile.  
  
“Yes, I am,” Harry says, attempting to brazen it out despite feeling as though Craig is peering directly into his mind. “What was that about a sign?”  
  
“You should go and have a look.” Craig reaches into his glove compartment and hands Harry a glossy business card. “Give us a call if you need anything.”  
  
Harry nods and takes the card, studying it as he walks.  
  
_Allerton’s Construction – working for you since 1963_  
  
He scans the contact information and then stuffs the card into his coat pocket. It could be very useful, but right now, he just wants to get to Garrett’s, look at this mysterious sign and dry his leg before the freezing water reaches his knee.  
  
“Come on, Murdo,” he says, picking up the pace.  
  
When they reach the café, Harry looks up and laughs. Someone has rested a tall ladder against the stone, and about halfway up it stands a man in a smart coat, gleefully hammering a ‘SOLD’ sign into the first floor window frame.  
  
“Hello,” he calls down to Harry, waving his hammer and beaming. “Don’t mind me!”  
  
“I won’t,” Harry says, reading the name of the estate agent on the sign. “I take it you’re pleased to have this place off your books?”  
  
“Pleased?” the man laughs. “I might have to take a photograph when I’m done here so everyone at the office actually believes it’s gone!”  
  
“Go for it,” Harry says, amused, and lets himself into the café.  
  
Draco emerges from the kitchen, quickly shutting the door behind him and surprising Harry with a smile that makes his stomach flip.  
  
“I had to shove them all in here when that man turned up,” he says, rattling the door handle and then stepping away. “I thought it best that he didn’t see them and fall off his ladder.”  
  
“Very wise,” Harry says.  
  
He looks at Draco across ten feet of dining room and tries to remember what to do next. He thinks he should be settling on the floor with his breakfast, helping to fix the steam machine or pulling Murdoch away from something he isn’t supposed to be chewing. He could tease Draco about the ink stain on his lip or the fact that one section of his hair is attempting to stand straight up; that’s what he would have done before, but now things are different and he’s not sure he can even move from the spot with the paralysing tension of uncertainty.  
  
“You’re embarrassed,” Draco says suddenly.  
  
“What? No, I’m not.”  
  
“You are. You look at me like that all the time and I always thought it meant you’d caught me doing something odd.”  
  
“Sometimes I had,” Harry says defensively.  
  
Draco smiles again and Harry’s knees turn to water. He lets go of Murdoch and crosses the room unsteadily, pressing his mouth to Draco’s and revelling in their shared sigh of relief. Everything seems to come together in a moment, the tension turning sharp and sweet and rushing around the base of his spine, skin tingling everywhere they touch and sparks flickering at the first brush of tongues.  
  
When Harry opens his eyes, the dining room has filled with ghostly winter sunlight and the estate agent is nowhere to be seen. He looks back at Draco to find curious grey eyes searching his face and all at once, he knows. He doesn’t need to worry about what to do. He doesn’t even need to think about it, because it’s going to be just like this. There will be a lot more anticipation and a lot less misery, but otherwise… they just need to be what they’ve always been.  
  
“Just… us,” he mumbles.  
  
Draco lifts an eyebrow. “Were you expecting someone else?”  
  
Harry snorts, resting his head on Draco’s shoulder and breathing in the scent of fresh, warm cotton.  
  
“No, idiot. Just sorting out a few things in my head.”  
  
“Don’t overwork yourself. We still have a lot of planning to do,” Draco says.  
  
“Speaking of which,” Harry says, reaching into his pocket and suppressing the urge to kick him. “Craig gave me this. I doubt he’ll be able to fit us in before Christmas but it’s worth having anyway.”  
  
“We’ll see,” Draco says, inspecting the card. Without warning, he stalks over to the kitchen door and flings it open. “Alright, you can come out.”  
  
Harry watches the tide of whiffles fill the doorway and then spill out into the dining room in a deafening wave of crackling blue points.  
  
“How do you get them to stay in there?” he asks as the thought occurs to him.  
  
“What do you mean? I round them up and close the door.”  
  
“Draco, they can disappear in and out of walls at will,” Harry says. “There’s nothing stopping them all popping back out the minute you close the door.”  
  
Draco frowns, watching the whiffles as they form a sort of tower, each rolling up over the last to create a structure that is almost as tall as him.  
  
“I’m not sure. Perhaps… perhaps they’re trying to be good,” he suggests.  
  
Harry laughs and every whiffle in the tower shoots out his oculus, destabilising the stack and sending them plummeting back into the crowd, where they are absorbed in seconds.  
  
“Maybe,” he agrees. “Maybe they like you and want to please you.”  
  
“And you,” Draco says. “And Murdo. Sometimes I have the strangest feeling they think we’re just very large whiffles.”  
  
Rather pleased with this idea, Harry sits among the whiffles and eats his breakfast. He is quickly joined by Draco, and then by Murdoch, who seems content to allow the little creatures to creep onto his tail, which he then flicks and sends them flying. Harry stops eating for a moment, lowering his bacon sandwich and watching them with mild concern, until he realises that the same few whiffles are returning again and again to be flung through the air.  
  
“Have you seen this?” he says, nudging Draco.  
  
“I think those are the same ones that were riding around on his back,” Draco says, sipping his tea. “They’re his groupies.”  
  
Harry snorts with laughter, quickly regretting taking such a big bite of his sandwich.  
  
“God, what a thought. I still can’t decide if they all have their own personalities or if they’re more of a… I don’t know, a hive mind?”  
  
“Both, I think,” Draco says. “From what I’ve seen, they can choose to act individually or as a group. They’re independent but they work particularly well as a unit.”  
  
“Like people,” Harry says, and then reconsiders. “Like some people.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Draco says. “Though I doubt any group of humans possesses the unity of mind to all pop out an eye at exactly the same time.”  
  
Harry turns to look at him, trying yet again not to choke on a mouthful of smoked bacon.  
  
“Good?” he manages, covering his mouth with his hand.  
  
Draco laughs, causing a whole ring of whiffles to send their eyes spinning noisily.  
  
“Well… perhaps that was a bit macabre. Of course, there’s the scout whiffle, who seems to be in charge, and… who on earth is that?”  
  
Harry frowns, twisting to follow Draco’s look of confusion. Outside the café, attempting to peer in through the dusty window, is a woman in a vivid knitted cardigan and a matching woollen hat.  
  
“That’s Molly,” he says faintly. “Molly Weasley.”  
  
“You could have told me she was coming,” Draco says crossly, wiping his hands on a paper napkin and getting to his feet. “We haven’t even started redecorating yet.”  
  
“I didn’t know she was coming,” Harry insists.  
  
Draco shoots him a scandalised look. “Who just turns up without any warning at all?”  
  
“Weasleys do,” Harry says, getting up and reaching for Draco’s hand just as Molly starts to knock at the door. “She’s lovely, okay? She’s nosy and she’ll ask a lot of questions and she might imply that you haven’t been eating enough, but she means well and she’s just curious about you.”  
  
“I’m going to be nice,” Draco says, and though he sounds offended, his fingers tighten around Harry’s for a split second before he takes a deep breath and opens the door. “Hello, Mrs Weasley. Would you like to come in?”  
  
Molly steps into the shop and looks around, taking in the half light of the dining room, the parchment-strewn tables and the whiffles, who have crowded around Harry’s feet and every one of whom is peering up at the stranger in complete silence.  
  
“Oh, waffles!” she says, beaming. “Arthur and I saw these on our honeymoon in Sweden. We stayed in an old house by the sea and the attic was full of them. Oh, Harry, your leg is soaked through!”  
  
Harry jumps as the stiff drying charm hits him. He glances at Draco, astonished, and he shrugs. It has never occurred to him to ask Molly about anything to do with his work, and now he wonders how much time he could have saved if he’d thought to.  
  
“They’re Scandinavian whiffles,” Draco says. “You saw them in their natural habitat. These ones seem to have arrived here by accident.”  
  
Molly stares at him, a mixture of confusion and surprise on her face. “Yes, but they’re naturalised, now, aren’t they?” She turns to Harry. “You aren’t going to send them away?”  
  
“Of course not. This is Draco’s café now, so they’re safe,” he says.  
  
“I thought it was abandoned,” she says distractedly, patting Murdoch and continuing to look around with obvious curiosity.  
  
“It was,” Draco says, tone even but face tight with anxiety.  
  
Harry wonders if he expects Molly to jump up and bite him, or worse, tell him that he’s just like his father. Seeming to sense his nervousness, she looks up at him with her patented no-nonsense expression.  
  
“You’ll be coming to lunch on Sunday?”  
  
“Me?” Draco asks, eyes wide.  
  
“Both of you,” Molly says. “Arthur wanted to come up for a look as well, but he’s got a cold and you needn’t be exposed to that. You can tell him all about this at lunch, can’t you?”  
  
“Er… well, yes, thank you, that would be lovely,” Draco says, and it’s hard to tell if his smile is powered by politeness or fear, but Molly doesn’t seem to mind.  
  
“Wonderful. Now, is there anywhere around here we can get a nice cup of tea?”  
  
“Of course,” Draco says, and when he turns his back on Molly to help Harry out of the deluge of whiffles at his feet, he whispers: “How does she know?”  
  
“About us?” Harry whispers back. “Won’t be a moment, Molly!”  
  
Draco nods, glancing over at Molly, who is rustling around happily in her handbag.  
  
“She doesn’t. She’s just being Molly. We’ve worked together all these years… to be honest, it’s amazing that she’s never asked you before.”  
  
Draco frowns, appearing to consider this, and then pulls hard on Harry’s wrist, helping him to perform a rather ungainly leap onto a safe patch of floor. He opens the door for Molly and she peers at him critically.  
  
“We’d better get some cake as well. Don’t you boys eat properly?”


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Eighteenth of December**  – a holly bush  
  
  
  
The steam rising from Harry’s morning cup of tea is a pleasant counter to the icy wind that blows in from his back yard and attempts to knock him back into his kitchen. He holds firm, sipping his scalding tea and bracing one hand against the doorframe. The morning is bright and bracing, just what he needs after a night full of vivid, restless dreams just real enough to leave him helplessly aroused and just frustrating enough to slip through his fingers each time he tries to recall the details.  
  
His head is full of everything Draco as he gazes out at his frosted paving stones and stubborn winter plants. A large holly bush gleams in the sunshine, jolting Harry’s memory for a split second and causing him to flush when Draco’s glinting eyeglass flashes a brief appearance.  
  
“Well, that’s different,” he mumbles, suddenly and inconveniently hard.  
  
The flames in his fireplace turn green and he hurries to sit at the table.  
  
“Harry, I’m glad I caught you,” Hermione says, face appearing in the fire. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Yes,” he says, a little too quickly. “Yeah. I’m fine. What’s up?”  
  
“Ron just called. He’s going to be on a stakeout tonight and I thought you’d probably prefer not to suffer my terrible cooking.”  
  
“I would never say that about your cooking,” Harry promises, silently adding: “not out loud.”  
  
Hermione laughs. “I know my cooking is dreadful, Harry, but I’ll never get better if I don’t practise. Today, though… I wondered if you and Draco might be up for some visitors? I’ll bring lunch. Made by someone else.”  
  
“Sounds good,” Harry says, and when she disappears from the flames, he sighs.  
  
He is almost certain that Hermione will take one look at him, at Garrett’s, at Draco, and instantly put together everything he has been keeping from her. The thing is, he can’t exactly keep her away, and it’s quite possible that one of Hermione’s ‘ _really_ , Harry?’ talks will be easier than any attempt by him to explain this bizarre situation he’s found himself in.  
  
Putting it to the back of his mind, he puts on his coat, summons Murdoch, and Apparates up to Blackwell. When he arrives at Garrett’s, he finds that Draco has hung a dark fabric blind at the window and is pacing from one end of the dining room to the other, wand in hand.  
  
“What are you doing?” Harry asks from the doorway.  
  
Draco stops, apparently surprised to see him. “I didn’t want anyone to see inside until we were done,” he explains, indicating the blind.  
  
“And what are we doing?”  
  
“Redecorating,” Draco says, sending a stack of shiny hardback books sliding Harry’s way.  
  
“Did you go to the library? On your own? Are you not scared of Joe any more?”  
  
Draco flicks his wand and Harry jumps, dropping one of the books as the Stinging Hex hits his backside and jolts down one leg. The book is immediately set upon by curious whiffles and Harry decides to leave it there, focusing instead on the ones still in his possession.  
  
“ _‘Caring for Your Period Home’_ ,” he reads. “ _‘The Idiot’s Guide to DIY’_ …  _‘Scandinavian Style’_?”  
  
Draco shrugs, trying and failing to hide his embarrassment. “I just thought, with the whiffles being from that part of the world… never mind.”  
  
“Tell me,” Harry says, stepping closer and catching Draco by the wrists, feeling his pulse quicken under his fingertips.  
  
Draco meets his eyes, expression defiant now. “I thought they might feel at home. You can feel free to tell me I’m ridiculous. I don’t care.”  
  
“You’re not ridiculous,” Harry says softly. “You’re brilliant, and I think it’s a great idea.”  
  
He releases Draco and flips through ‘ _Scandinavian Style’_. “I like it… it’s all sort of clean and cosy. We could do this.”  
  
Draco smiles, picking up one of the other books. “Apparently, this wall here needs to be ‘plastered’… or ‘re-plastered’, I’m not sure. It doesn’t really say much about identifying plaster in the first place, so I’m obviously more of an idiot than the author was counting on.”  
  
“Or, you’ve spent most of your life in a fancy manor or an ancient castle and this is all new to you,” Harry says, reaching out to touch the uneven wall. “We could ask Craig’s dad.”  
  
“I thought of that, but then I looked at that little card and there was no address on it—only a telephone number and an email address. I might have become cross and given the card to the whiffles to play with,” he admits.  
  
Harry laughs. “I’ll see if I can catch Craig at the Breakfast Barrel. Don’t panic.”  
  
“I never panic,” Draco says airily.  
  
Harry just grins and heads back out into the cold morning, leaving Murdoch behind and heading in search of breakfast and people who know how to do things.  
  
When he returns, Draco is sitting cross-legged on the floor, absorbed in  _‘Scandinavian Style’_. Harry watches him for a moment, heart swollen with love for a man who can design and build a shoulder-mounted weather cannon but finds plaster a baffling mystery.  
  
“Hermione and the kids are coming at lunchtime,” he says, settling beside Draco on the floor.  
  
Draco accepts a paper cup and a sandwich. “Is your entire family planning to visit this week?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry says easily. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”  
  
He gulps down half his tea in one go and sets down his cup. By the time he has taken off his coat, a group of whiffles have swarmed the paper cup and managed to tip it over, spilling hot tea all over the floor and scattering in all directions, blue-black points wet and shimmering.  
  
“Well, that was a good idea,” Draco says, leaning over to check that the whiffles close to him are unharmed.  
  
Harry does the same, watching with interest as all the points of the affected group turn to soft bristles. Within ten seconds, all of them have gathered around the cup again, and within twenty, they have crowded inside and are lifting the whole thing off the floor. The paper cup hovers for a moment and then drifts back down, and the triumphant crackling from within is incredible.  
  
“Give them a real cup,” Draco says.  
  
“One of Gladys’s?” Harry asks, pretending to be scandalised despite having just had the same thought.  
  
“I’ve got one here,” Draco says, picking up a striped mug. “If they break it, we can put it back together, she’ll never know.”  
  
Harry hesitates, thinking of the broken picture frame still sitting on his chest of drawers at home. After a moment, he nods and takes the cup. The intrigue in Draco’s eyes is too much to ignore, and besides, he is probably far more skilled at fiddly magic than Harry will ever be.  
  
Carefully, he places the cup on the floor and waits. At first, it seems as though nothing is going to happen, but then one whiffle creeps closer, oculus stretched out and little round eye whirring. When it enters the cup, it is followed by several others, and between them, they rock the heavier cup from side to side, grinding ceramic against cold tile. Finally, the cup lifts from the floor, hovers at a height of about six inches, turns in a circle and crashes into Harry’s lap.  
  
He picks up the unharmed cup and shakes out at least twenty crackling whiffles, all of whom immediately stick to his trousers.  
  
“That’s an interesting skill,” he says, and Draco laughs.  
  
“We could teach them to perform tricks,” he says, sketching a poster in the air with his hands. “See the talented whiffles of Garrett’s and sample the best hot chocolate and bakewells in the northern hemisphere.”  
  
“Gladys will be thrilled to hear that,” Harry says, grinning. “Maybe she’d like to be a Saturday girl.”  
  
Draco nods, going to take a bite of his sandwich and then pausing. “Did you find Craig?”  
  
“I’m not going to ask how you made that leap,” Harry says.  
  
“I wouldn’t.”  
  
“They’re on a big outdoor job. He says they might be able to fit us in the second week in January.”  
  
Draco sighs. “Well, that’s a shame. I suppose we’ll have to work around it. I was looking forward to seeing a plaster man in action.”  
  
“Why, exactly?”  
  
“It’s supposed to be very satisfying,” Draco says, pulling a book towards him. “It says so here – ‘plastering is great fun to watch, but beware, it’s a lot more difficult than it looks’.”  
  
“Have you read all of those books?” Harry asks, amused.  
  
“I’ve taken them in. I was going to get some about running a café, but Joe said I could only borrow six at a time.”  
  
Harry stares at him, astonished. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually joined the library?”  
  
Draco fishes a plastic card from his trouser pocket and shows it to him. “I didn’t have all the bits of paper he wanted but I promised I’d bring them in when they turned up. He knows where to find me if I don’t bring them back, doesn’t he?”  
  
“Draco, I’m shocked,” Harry says, grinning. “I haven’t had a library card since I was at primary school. I’m proud of you.”  
  
Draco leans over and kisses him. “Shut up.”  
  
**~*~**  
  
Hermione, Rose and Hugo turn up just before one to find Harry and Draco surrounded by books, whiffles, and bits of parchment.  
  
“Mum, they won’t move,” Rose sighs, trying to wheel herself into the café but finding her way blocked by pointy little balls of enthusiasm.  
  
Hermione peers over her daughter’s shoulder and then at Harry. “Any ideas?”  
  
Draco gets to his feet and switches on the steam machine. The noise is ear-splitting and the steam still fills almost half of the room, but the whiffles flock to it without hesitation, allowing Rose and her chair to enter, followed by her mother and brother. When everyone is safely inside, Draco turns off the steam and dissipates the worst of it with his wand.  
  
“Oh, they’re disappointed,” Rose says.  
  
“They can have it on later. Right now it’s still very noisy and needs a lot of refining,” Draco explains, but Harry doesn’t miss the apologetic look he gives the disenchanted whiffles.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, joining Hermione at a table. “Welcome to the pointy house.”  
  
She smiles. “I’d quite like to know whose pointy house it is, given the great big ‘sold’ sign I just saw out there.”  
  
“It’s mine,” Draco says, standing behind Harry and vibrating anxiety all down his back. “I bought it. I haven’t seen you since that Ministry Ball… it was a long time ago.”  
  
“Six or seven years,” Hermione says, nodding. “Before the two of you even shared an office.”  
  
Draco looks at her for long seconds. “Your hair is longer,” he says, and then walks away to crouch beside Hugo and a group of bouncing whiffles.  
  
Hermione glances down at her hair and smiles to herself. “So,” she says expectantly.  
  
Harry shrugs, feeling his heart beginning to race. “So?”  
  
“I haven’t come here to grill you, Harry,” she says, and then her eyes turn sharp. “We can talk on Sunday.”  
  
“Oh, good,” Harry murmurs, and she laughs, looking around at the dining room.  
  
“You’re going to need some electricity, you know,” she says, addressing Draco. “And a connection to the Floo Network. Did you know that your nearest safe Apparation point is all the way behind that hill?”  
  
She points over her shoulder and then looks back at Harry. He smiles and allows himself to relax just a little bit.  
  
“Yeah, Hermione, I had sort of noticed that.”  
  
“We are waiting for the electricity to be turned on,” Draco says. “And perhaps, a plasterer.”  
  
“You’re waiting for a plasterer to be turned on?” Hermione asks, mouth flickering at one corner.  
  
Draco snorts and turns back to Hugo. Rose pulls a face.  
  
“Mum, don’t be disgusting,” she sighs.  
  
“I’ll be disgusting if I want to be,” Hermione says. A whiffle creeps up the investigate the leg of her trousers and she watches it, intrigued. “You’re going to open this place as a café for Muggles?” she asks, and Harry wants to hug her for treating this idea as though it is completely normal.  
  
“Mostly Muggles, yes, but I don’t plan on keeping wizards away,” Draco says absently, now focused on the task of showing Hugo exactly how to weigh and measure a whiffle.  
  
“What are you going to do with them?” she asks, allowing a large specimen to bounce onto her hand, points carefully softened. “I mean, they’re lovely, but you can’t let the Muggles see them.”  
  
“That is a problem in progress,” Draco says, screwing in his eyeglass and startling when Hugo falls over giggling. He blinks. Looks at Harry for help. “I don’t think I’ve ever made a child laugh before.”  
  
Something in his tone makes Harry look at Hermione, and she gazes back at him, eyes bright with amusement. Bewildered, Draco returns to the whiffle and a slightly calmer Hugo.  
  
“Muggles can’t see them,” Harry tells Hermione. “But they can hear them.”  
  
“I think they might notice empty cups flying around, too,” she says, and he looks around to see that both the paper cup and the ceramic one are now occupied, skidding along just inches from the floor in what appears to be a race.  
  
“We’re working on it,” he promises.  
  
“Uncle Harry, you haven’t got any decorations up at all,” Rose says. “How will the whiffles know it’s Christmas?”  
  
“Well… we will have some decorations, but we’ve got a lot to do in here before it’s finished. I wouldn’t like to put decorations up and then keep having to take them down,” Harry says.  
  
“Not even in the window?” Rose asks.  
  
“I suppose we could put something in the window,” Harry concedes.  
  
“Snap snap snap!” Hugo cries, and they turn as one to see him clicking Draco’s callipers at several apparently unconcerned whiffles. “Honk honk honk!”  
  
“I see the goose is with us,” Hermione says.  
  
“Should I ask?”  
  
“He hasn’t stopped talking about the goose since you took him to that thing at the library,” she explains. “He was rather taken with it.”  
  
“I wanted to get him a goose hand-puppet for Christmas,” Rose says sadly. “But I can’t find one anywhere.”  
  
She looks so genuinely disappointed that Harry has to hug her. “You know, there’s a haberdashery next to the hardware shop, just down there,” he says, pointing. “Why don’t you go and see if you can buy some things to make one?”  
  
Hermione’s eyes widen in alarm.  
  
“Me, Mum—I’m going to make one,” she assures, beaming up at Harry. “That’s a clever idea.”  
  
“Well, I know you can do it because you made me such a brilliant Christmas card,” he says.  
  
Rose’s face lights up with pride. “Did you like it? Oh, look—Mum, Uncle Harry’s put my card on the counter!”  
  
She wheels carefully around Draco, Hugo, and the whiffles and gazes at the collection of cards. Picking each one up in turn, she reads the messages aloud.  
  
“To Harry and Draco, have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year, from the Allerton family. Dear boys next door, we hope you have a very merry Christmas and decide to stay with us here in Blackwell. All the best, Gladys and Bob. Dear Murdoch and family…” She giggles. “That’s funny. All the festive wishes and delicious treats, love from Serena.”  
  
As she reaches for the next card, Hermione turns back to Harry. “Sounds like you have a lot of friends here already.”  
  
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s a nice little place.”  
  
Hermione fixes him with clever dark eyes. “You don’t have to tell me, Harry. I can see how happy you are.”  
  
Harry swallows hard. “I’m… yeah. I’m going red, aren’t I?”  
  
She smiles. “No,” she says, and god love her, she’s a terrible liar.  
  
“Good. Look, why don’t you and Rose have a look at the haberdashery, Draco and Hugo can carry on with… whatever it is they’re doing, and I’m going to nip back home to get something.”  
  
“To get what?” Hermione asks.  
  
“You’ll see.”  
  
“Come on, Mum,” Rose says excitedly, already wheeling herself towards the door. “I brought my pocket money and everything.”  
  
“Be good,” Harry calls to Hugo and a rather startled Draco, leaving them behind and heading for the wood beyond the hill.  
  
The cold air bites at his face and speeds his steps, leaving him numb and out of breath by the time he arrives in his kitchen and sorely tempted to make a quick cup of tea, but he forces himself out into the garden instead. He finds an old, frost-stiff pair of gauntlets and puts them on before entering into battle with the holly bush, slicing at the wood with his wand and swearing when the prickly leaves scratch at his arms and face. He wrestles with the stubborn plant until he has collected enough holly to properly decorate the front window of Garretts, and then, stuffing the lot into a huge cloth bag, he Apparates back to the woods with it.  
  
When he returns, Draco is alone in the dining room.  
  
“Where’s Hugo?” Harry asks, dropping the bag and examining the scratches on his arms.  
  
“Bathroom,” Draco says, scanning his face with concern. “Have you been in a fight?”  
  
“Sort of,” Harry admits. “Am I imagining it or is there a great big scratch right down the side of my face?”  
  
“No, it’s there. It’s quite nasty, actually,” Draco says, taking Harry’s face in cool hands and examining the scratch with narrowed eyes. “Hold on.”  
  
Harry barely dares to breathe as Draco gently draws the tip of his wand over the damaged skin, following it with his fingertips and then his lips. Shivering, Harry kisses him and whispers his thanks against the corner of Draco’s mouth.  
  
When Hugo walks into the room, they draw apart. The little boy sighs.  
  
“Why are grown-ups always _kissing_?” he demands, folding his arms.  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry says, scooping up Hugo and swinging him around. “Probably because we’re  _disgusting_. Shall we see if we can get all this holly on the window before Mummy and Rose get back?”  
  
Fifteen minutes later, the front window of Garrett’s has been festooned with so much holly that it looks like something out of a Victorian Christmas card. Everyone including Murdoch has been spiked at least once, but Draco’s healing charms ensure that Hermione and Rose are greeted with triumphant smiles when they return from the haberdashery. Rose is clutching a striped paper bag and looks as though she might burst with excitement. Hermione is windblown and pink cheeked and seems equally satisfied.  
  
“We had a great lesson about Muggle money and budgeting,” she tells Harry, slipping her arm through his arm and looking at the window. “That looks fantastic. You just need a wreath for the door and it’ll be perfect.”  
  
“I’ve got some holly left,” he says innocently. “Would you like to make one?”  
  
“I will,” Rose says. “Grandad’s got some special gloves with magic in them so you don’t get all scratched up.”  
  
Harry privately wishes her all the luck in the world with that, but hands over the remains of the holly without a word.  
  
“I think it may be time for lunch,” Draco says, eyes drifting in the direction of the Breakfast Barrel.  
  
“That other café’s closing for the day,” Hermione says. “We saw the man turn the sign around when we were on our way back. Fortunately, I brought something brilliant with me.”  
  
Harry follows her into the café, stomach already beginning to growl. They settle around the largest table and Hermione lifts a huge earthenware pot out of her bag. She draws her wand around the pot, surrounding it with warm orange light, and then produces five bowls and spoons. In no time at all, the dining room is filled with a delicious, herby scent, and when Hermione removes the lid of the pot to reveal a bubbling, steaming stew, everyone leans forward to look at it.  
  
“Molly made this,” Hermione says, spooning rich, dark stew into everyone’s bowls. “She seems more worried than usual about how thin you are.”  
  
Harry and Draco exchange glances. Rose and Hugo giggle at some unknown joke. The whiffles crackle in around them and Murdoch rests his head on Harry’s leg in the hope of scraps. The stew is outstanding, hearty and flavoursome with assorted root vegetables and pieces of beef that fall apart on the tongue. Harry is delighted to discover the addition of buttery, rosemary-flavoured dumplings that make him think of Hogwarts and firesides and home.  
  
“This is… sensational,” Draco says, shaking his head and staring at Harry as though he can explain how Molly Weasley is able to charm ingredients into miracles. “Do you think she’ll make this on Sunday?”  
  
“You have  _roast_  on Sundays,” Hugo says, head bent low over his bowl.  
  
“It’s as good as this,” Rose assures Draco. “Grandma is the best cook in the world.”  
  
“What about Grandad?” Harry asks, glancing at Hermione. “Pea tornadoes? Gravy mist? Roast parsnip ice cream?”  
  
Draco stops eating and stares at him across the table. “Excuse me?”  
  
Hermione smiles slowly. “You’ll see.”


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Nineteenth of December**  – a fancy glass bauble  
  
  
  
Saturday morning is damp and cold, but the interior of Garrett’s is a glowing little sanctuary. The place is still in complete chaos, but Draco has managed to restore the fireplace in the dining room ready for connection to the Floo Network, and the flickering light from their first real fire makes the little café feel comfortable and loved. Harry breathes in the scent of burning wood and allows it to soothe the worst of the anxious longing that fires up in the pit of his stomach every time Draco looks up from his scribbling and smiles at him, just because.  
  
He takes a deep breath and attempts to pull himself together. If he were feeling bolder, he would abandon his search for the perfect style of Scandinavian chair and push Draco back onto the cold floor, scattering whiffles to every corner of the room, and kiss him hard, unfasten every one of those ridiculous little buttons and press his mouth to warm, pale skin. Instead, he continues to let his knee rest against Draco’s and stares at the rows of chairs in the book on his lap that neatly hides his arousal.  
  
He can’t quite identify the thing that is holding him back, but it is dangling by a thread, and when Draco lays a cool hand on his thigh, the whole thing snaps. Suppressing a groan, he leans over and kisses Draco, surprising a gasp from him that just makes things worse.  
  
Draco pulls back, expression unreadable. “What do you think of this?”  
  
It takes Harry a moment to realise exactly what he’s supposed to be looking at. “Oh… it’s good.”  
  
“‘Good’ is not a very descriptive word,” Draco says, scrutinising the flyer he has designed to advertise what he is calling the ‘preview opening’ of the new Garrett’s.  
  
“Nice?” Harry suggests, knowing that Draco will poke him with his pencil and pretending to be hurt anyway. “Perfectly fit for purpose?”  
  
“I will hex you,” Draco says calmly.  
  
“I think it’s brilliant,” Harry says. “Very eye-catching. But you seem to have missed the bit where you say what the place is called.”  
  
“What do you think it should be called?”  
  
“Honestly?” Harry asks.  
  
“Always.”  
  
“I think you should keep the name. It’s always been Garrett’s, at least as long as most people around here can remember.”  
  
“I could amuse Gladys and Marcia and their friends and confuse the hell out of everyone else by calling it ‘Mr Dawson’s General Store’,” Draco muses with a half-smile that goes straight to Harry’s cock.  
  
“There’s always that option,” Harry says weakly, but Draco is already writing again.  
  
“Garrett’s it is,” he says after a moment, showing Harry the flyer again and then picking up his wand. “How many copies shall we have? Two hundred? Three?”  
  
“Something like that, but don’t do it with a spell,” Harry says, taking the flyer and willing down his unhelpful erection. “I’ll take it to the newsagent and use the copier.”  
  
“Don’t you mean the library?” Draco says, picking a whiffle out of his half-full tea cup and setting it on the floor with a sigh.  
  
“No, but that’s a thought. We could ask Joe to put some up on his notice boards,” Harry says.  
  
“I’m not sure about that newspaper man,” Draco says, frowning. “I went in there yesterday to buy some chocolate and he looked as though he’d like to drop me off a cliff. And then I wondered if I just thought that because my father always used to say that Russian people were always angry.”  
  
“He’s Estonian, not Russian,” Harry says helpfully.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“He told me. His name’s Kaspar, and to be honest, I think that’s just how his face looks. The thing is, if we want this community to support us, we should support them. I’ll put a few quid in his copier and he might tell people to come and have a cup of tea with us.”  
  
Draco regards him steadily for several seconds. “And that is exactly the kind of thinking I need. Would you like to be my business manager?”  
  
Harry wrinkles his nose and gets to his feet. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll go and get some copies of this and then we should start sticking them through doors straight away. Murdoch could do with a walk before he gets completely buried in whiffles and we never find him again.”  
  
“What would you like to be, then?” Draco asks, looking up at him from the floor. “Chief Whiffle Wrangler? Head of Bakewells?”  
  
Harry laughs, putting on his coat. “I’m going now.”  
  
“How about partner?” Draco says, and he stops with his hand on the doorknob.  
  
“Draco, this is your crazy project. I’m just here to help,” he insists, secretly rather thrilled at the idea.  
  
“There wouldn’t be a crazy project without you,” Draco says fiercely. “I’d be sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself and thinking up ways to wreak petty revenge on Seddon.”  
  
“Are you serious?”  
  
“Absolutely, I probably would have owled her a sack of flobberworms by now.”  
  
“Draco.”  
  
The grey eyes glow with amusement. “Yes, I’m serious. Fifty-fifty.”  
  
Harry doesn’t know what to say, but when Draco rises from the floor and holds out his hand, he shakes it without another thought.  
  
“Your crazy project is now our crazy project,” he says after a moment. “Fucking hell.”  
  
Draco laughs. “I could do this on my own, Harry, but I’d rather not. We’re a team, remember? You, me, and Murdoch.”  
  
“And several hundred whiffles,” Harry adds, caught in a flood of warmth that seems to insist that he smiles like a lunatic.  
  
“And Gladys, and Bob and Mike and Joe and enough Weasleys to…I don’t know,” Draco says, wandering off into the kitchen.  
  
“Fill an eggcup? Sink a battleship? Make a pie?” Harry offers, realising that he is talking to himself.  
  
Grinning, he heads for the newsagent, where, with the help of a stony-faced Kaspar, he uses the temperamental old copier to make three hundred flyers.  
  
“You open this tea shop?” he asks, refilling the paper tray and peering up at Harry.  
  
“Yeah. On Christmas Eve, just for the day, and then properly in the new year.”  
  
“You have cake?”  
  
“Lots,” Harry promises.  
  
Kaspar nods and doesn’t speak again. Harry takes his copies, plus a Toblerone for Draco, and walks slowly back to Garrett’s. He is entirely unsurprised to see Gladys loitering in the doorway, eyeing the holly in the window and chatting to Draco.  
  
“I’m back,” he announces, spotting the sign in the window that reads ‘UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP’ in Draco’s neat block capitals. He smiles. “Hello, Gladys, can I give you one of these?”  
  
Gladys examines the flyer with pursed lips. After a moment, she smiles. “You  _do_  listen to me. That’s nice.”  
  
“Of course we do, Gladys,” Draco says, joining them at the door. “You are a wise sage and an oracle.”  
  
“Are you calling me old, love?”  
  
“I wouldn’t,” Draco promises.  
  
“Well, you should. I am old,” Gladys says. “I like all this holly, very festive. Why haven’t you got a tree?”  
  
Draco seems to freeze for a moment and then springs into action. He grabs his coat, locks the door and steps out into the street.  
  
“Right, we’re going to get a tree,” he announces, propelling Harry around the corner and then coming to an abrupt halt. With a sigh, he walks back around the corner. “Gladys, where can we get a tree?”  
  
Harry doesn’t hear the old lady’s response but Draco is back within seconds, turning him to walk in the complete opposite direction.  
  
“What was that about?” he asks, amused.  
  
“That was about the fact that every morning, before you and Murder Face turn up, that woman comes over and asks me why I haven’t got a Christmas tree,” Draco says wearily.  
  
“Did she come this morning?”  
  
“Yes. Including just now, that makes a total of twelve ‘why haven’t you got a Christmas tree’-s and there’s only so much a man can take.”  
  
“I thought you were going to wait until we’d painted and stuff,” Harry says, ducking into his scarf to hide his smile.  
  
“Do you want to carry this tree back on your own?” Draco asks. “I’m planning to get a very large one.”  
  
Harry snorts and falls silent, walking through the streets of Blackwell at Draco’s side, shoving flyers through doors as he passes and attempting to commit the street names to memory to avoid later duplication. When they reach a large, windswept park, Draco leads them down a cobbled alley to a shop that seems to be a combination of garden centre, pet store and fancy goods emporium, all crammed into a single storey building with round windows and a forest of Christmas trees in plastic nets at the front.  
  
Draco approaches the trees with purpose, pulling a fabric tape from his coat pocket and taking more measurements from each tree than Ollivander had taken from Harry when he’d bought his first wand. He watches for a while, amused, and then leaves Draco to his exacting process and wanders inside. The shop smells wonderful, spiced candles burning in ornate holders and live water plants waving in their tanks, ready to be taken home and installed in aquariums. Harry looks around at the fish on display, watching shiny little eyes and flapping fins and spending several minutes peering at an enormous, cross-looking catfish that reminds him a little bit of Draco.  
  
He browses winter plants and huge stacks of earth-scented spring bulbs, considers an absurdly expensive twisty wooden bench for his yard and wonders if Murdoch would like a bed stuffed with goose feathers. Reminding himself that Murdoch has ignored every dog bed he has ever bought in favour of sleeping wherever Harry is, he walks away and returns to the fancier part of the shop, where his eye is immediately caught by a stylised tree draped in ornate glass baubles.  
  
Resting in the tree’s upper branches is a sign that reads:  
  
_Hand-blown glass decorations by local artist – every one unique - £15_  
  
Harry scans the baubles, intrigued by the swirls in the glass that are, indeed, different in every single one. Each is made of glass so delicate that the fine, twisting lines running through each one give the impression that the decoration is just about to shatter into crystal-bright pieces. At the top of each bauble, specks of colour seem to dance and blur in the light from the candles and Harry’s breath causes the ones nearest to him to spin slowly on their rough string loops.  
  
Very, very carefully, he unhooks a bauble from its branch, holding it up to examine it in the light. The specks of blue and silver grey in the glass remind him of the iridescent glory of a sea of whiffles, and before he can think better of it, he is walking to the counter and handing over his fifteen pounds in return for a safely-packed cardboard box, which he hides with some difficulty in his coat pocket.  
  
“Did you find the right one?” he asks Draco, who is still fiddling with his measuring tape.  
  
“I think so,” he says, frowning and indicating the tree in front of him, a delicious-smelling spruce that stands at just over seven feet tall and prickles Harry’s fingers when he reaches out to touch it. “It has even measurements and a good density of needles per branch.”  
  
“‘Good’ is not a very descriptive word,” Harry teases.  
  
Draco laughs. “Just for that, you can carry the pointy end.”  
  
“I’m not afraid of the pointy end,” Harry says, just as a man in red fleece wanders over to take Draco’s money.  
  
The journey back to Garrett’s is a slow and uncomfortable one. They rest the netted tree on their shoulders, Harry following Draco’s lead and attempting to stay in step. Despite the cold day, Harry is soon warm with exertion, itching from constant skin contact with the tree and wishing he didn’t still have a good two hundred and fifty flyers stuffed under one arm. Murdoch sets upon them the moment they open the door, barking and leaping up to investigate this strange green object, making Harry quietly grateful that he has been shut up in the café rather than knocking over ornaments with his tail and getting under their feet.  
  
Together, they cut open the net encasing the tree and leave it to settle its branches. Harry goes into the kitchen to wash his irritated hands, surprised when Draco follows him.  
  
“There’s another sink in the bathroom,” he says, and Draco just smiles.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Harry dries his hands on his jeans and leans against the counter. “You’re covered in pine needles.”  
  
“Where?” Draco asks, eyes never leaving Harry’s.  
  
“Everywhere,” Harry says, mouth tugging into a grin as he takes in the needles on Draco’s otherwise immaculate wool coat, his scarf, and strewn through his wind-ruffled hair.  
  
Something about Draco’s expression makes him laugh and he doesn’t stop even when he is kissed and pushed against the counter, cold hands on his face and the clean scent of pine everywhere. His laughter catches in his throat when Draco unbuttons his coat and slips his fingers under his jumper, nails scraping over his skin, making him shiver and gasp against Draco’s shoulder.  
  
Already desperate for more, Harry reaches for Draco’s mouth again and pulls him impossibly closer, hips tight together through far too many layers of clothing. Fingers fumbling against coat buttons, he closes his eyes, already hard and aching and breathless with need, but Draco slips out of his grasp and sinks to the floor, unbuttoning and pulling down Harry’s jeans and underwear before his mind can register what is happening.  
  
Draco’s mouth is startlingly hot, brushing over the length of his cock before taking him inside. Harry grabs the counter with both hands and lets out a sound that surprises him. Draco pushes him back against the hard surface until it hurts, taking him deep and surrounding him with a pressure that makes him arch his back helplessly, each slow, intense movement pulling him into a spiral of juddering pleasure that threatens to break him open.  
  
It's been so long since anyone touched him like this and the fact that it’s happening and that it’s Draco is just too much. He looks down at the pale, windswept hair, the coat and scarf and strong fingers bruising his hips and he can’t breathe.  
  
“Oh, god,” he whispers, and Draco flicks his tongue and he can’t stop it.  
  
Tipping back his head, he groans and comes in Draco’s mouth, shaking all over and heart slamming against his ribcage in a manic rhythm.  
  
Slowly, he slides to the floor and gazes idly at the kitchen. The tiles are cold and there is a spider dangling from the bottom of the cupboard above his head. Draco sits beside him, coat still buttoned all the way up.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, frowning lightly. “I lost control a little bit. I’ve been keeping it for a long time.”  
  
Harry rests his head against the under-sink cupboard and smiles. “So have I. And you really need to stop apologising about these things. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m completely on board.”  
  
“Yes, I suppose I had noticed,” Draco says, eyes darkening as he looks at Harry. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”  
  
A warm little thrill passes through Harry and he allows Draco to help him up. He shivers as he pulls up his jeans and the rough denim brushes sensitised skin.  
  
“Where?”  
  
“My flat.”  
  
“What about Murdoch?” Harry asks.  
  
“He can come too if he behaves himself,” Draco says, opening the kitchen door and addressing the dog. “Dogs are not allowed on sofas, chairs or beds. Do you understand?”  
  
Murdoch wags his tail and offers a violent sneeze in response. Draco sighs.  
  
**~*~**  
  
In spite of Harry’s concerns, the daft dog quickly settles himself on the rug in front of Draco’s fire and is snoozing contentedly by the time they have taken off their coats and shoes and settled on the sofa with mugs of tea. Harry sits with his back against one arm of the sofa and Draco sits opposite him, feet resting in the middle and legs comfortably tangled. Still enjoying the pleasant hum of release in his veins, Harry looks around at Draco’s living room.  
  
Sober eyes and daylight allow him to see things he had missed on his previous visit, like the collection of teapots in their glass fronted cabinet, a stack of flattened out foil cases, presumably the former homes of bakewell tarts, and the vast collection of scientific books, both magical and Muggle, that overflow their shelves and form piles on a nearby table. There is no Christmas tree, but both of  
  
Draco’s windows are lined with warm white lights and there is an advent calendar on the coffee table, most of the doors now open and obscuring the picture of a snowy village.  
  
“Don’t even think about it, I haven’t opened it yet today,” Draco says when Harry picks up the calendar to examine it.  
  
“What stops you eating them all at once?” he asks, charmed by Draco’s scandalised expression.  
  
“Do you have no respect for tradition?”  
  
Harry laughs. “Actually, I do, and I got you this,” he says, retrieving the box containing the bauble from his coat and handing it to Draco.  
  
“Did you buy this today?” he asks, dangling the bauble from one finger and letting it spin slowly.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”  
  
“And traditional,” Harry points out.  
  
Draco gets up and walks to the window, where he hangs the glass decoration on a protruding nail. The afternoon sunlight filters through the stained glass and then through the bauble, casting strange and wonderful shadows onto the opposite wall.  
  
“Don’t you want to hang it on the tree at Garrett’s?” Harry asks.  
  
“So it can be smashed into pieces by whiffles?” Draco says, settling back on the sofa and resting his socked foot on Harry’s thigh. “No, thank you.”  
  
“I suppose we’d better get some indestructible decorations, then,” Harry muses. “Maybe you should design some.”  
  
Draco smiles. “You think I can just make anything, don’t you?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “Can’t you?”  
  
“It isn’t that I don’t like spells, you know,” Draco says, expression thoughtful. “I think they’re useful. They’re a tool… a building block… but you can’t hold a spell. I like to make things that I can touch.”  
  
“Like steam machines,” Harry says, covering a lazy yawn with his arm.  
  
Draco nods, and for a long time, neither of them says a word. Harry drinks his tea and stretches out into the soft cushions of the sofa, resting a gentle hand on Draco’s ankle. Murdoch sleeps on, and behind him, the fire crackles in the grate. As the sun begins to set and the light passing through the stained glass throws soft colours over their skin, Harry shifts closer to Draco and eases his trousers open, breathing him in and allowing his heated cock to rest, heavy, on his tongue. Eyes closed and unhurried, he slides his mouth over Draco until he stiffens and comes, fingers in Harry’s hair, and Harry follows him with a rough groan, spilling helplessly over his own fingers.  
  
“I remember it now,” Draco whispers, as they curl together under a knitted blanket. “I remember you being here that night.”  
  
“Thanks for having me back,” Harry mumbles, fingers trailing over the warm skin of Draco’s stomach.  
  
“I could sell bakewells,” Draco offers, eyes closing.  
  
“You could make bakewells. You can make anything.”  
  
There is no response, but Draco smiles in his sleep.  



	20. Chapter Twenty

**Twentieth of December**  – a piggy bank  
  
  
  
“Stop that at once, Murder Face,” Draco mumbles, reaching out from under the blanket and swatting ineffectually at Harry’s shoulder.  
  
“You stop that at once,” Harry says, opening one eye and taking in his surroundings with a little swoop of pleasure. “Murder Face is nowhere near you. He is licking my hand and you are… well, now you’re trying to poke me in the ear.”  
  
Draco peers at him, grey eyes softened by sleep and seeming to glow under the haze of Christmas lights.  
  
“He was trying to get onto the sofa,” he says, shifting position and frowning down at Murdoch. “It’s possible I was dreaming.”  
  
“Poor Murdoch,” Harry says, deciding not to tell Draco that the daft dog is quite used to being able to sleep on the furniture and that his beautiful white sofa probably has a lot of cleaning spells in its future. “He’s starving and he needs a walk. I have no idea what time it is but…” He looks around, puzzled. “You don’t have a clock in here.”  
  
“I try to relax in here,” Draco says defensively. “I don’t want to know what time it is.”  
  
Unexpectedly charmed, Harry smiles and kisses him. He is warm and languid and the cushions beneath him call out to Harry like a siren song, but he resists. With a massive effort, he gets to his feet and clips Murdoch onto his lead.  
  
“We’ll meet you at one o’clock, okay?”  
  
“In the field behind the house,” Draco mumbles, curling into himself and pulling the blanket up to his chin.  
  
“Draco?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“It’s going to be fine.”  
  
Draco sighs. “They’re all going to talk to me at once, aren’t they?”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry says, amused. “That’s what they do. Just make sure you eat plenty and everything will be great.  
  
**~*~**  
  
“When you said ‘eat plenty’ you never said anything about exploding apple sauce,” Draco says, gripping his cup of mulled cherry juice and watching Arthur from a safe distance.  
  
“It’s not exploding, it’s ‘scattering’,” Harry says helpfully, having already heard Arthur’s explanation of this week’s experiment several times. “The apple sauce comes in a compressed ball and then scatters itself to create the optimal distribution over your roast pork.”  
  
“It’s an explosion,” Draco insists. “A controlled explosion, but still.”  
  
“I like that,” Arthur declares, turning to them with a smile. “A controlled explosion of apple sauce.”  
  
Draco looks wonderfully baffled. Harry laughs.  
  
“Don’t encourage him, Draco,” Molly chides, bustling past with an enormous gravy boat.  
  
“That’s right,” Arthur says, setting down his wand and gesturing for Draco to join him. “You’re something of an inventor, aren’t you? Why just encourage when you can consult? Come over here and tell me what I’m doing wrong with this spell.”  
  
Molly sighs and heads for the stove, bending protectively over her steaming vegetables. For several seconds, Draco stays perfectly still, watching her. Finally, he turns to Harry, shaking his head.  
  
“Steam!” he says triumphantly.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry agrees, making no effort to hide his confusion.  
  
“Steam,” Draco repeats, kissing Harry on the cheek and then abandoning him to join Arthur at the other side of the kitchen.  
  
“Harry?” Hermione says, sidling up to him with something behind her back.  
  
“Mmm?” Distracted both by the sight of Draco and Arthur bending over a dish of apple sauce and by Molly’s warm, knowing expression, Harry doesn’t look at Hermione until she pokes him quite hard.  
  
“She already knows, Harry, it’s fine,” she says.  
  
“Did you tell her?”  
  
“No,” she says, clearly offended. “You did.”  
  
Harry sighs, embarrassed at being so obvious. He looks back at Draco and Arthur, now talking in low voices over the apple sauce, and chooses not to care. He smiles at Hermione.  
  
“I’m sorry. What’s that?”  
  
Hermione grimaces and produces a folded copy of the Sunday  _Prophet_. Harry stares at it, stomach lurching. In the whirl of Garrett’s and Draco and whiffles, he has almost managed to forget all about walking out of his job at the Ministry, and seeing the news splashed in black and white across the most-read edition of the Daily Prophet makes him feel rather sick. His appetite disappears in an instant, and the usually delicious aromas of roast pork and garlic potatoes catch unpleasantly at the back of his throat.  
  
“Sit,” Hermione instructs, pushing him into a chair at the table and taking the one beside him. “Ron found out yesterday. Seddon came to talk to him about recommendations for a replacement.”  
  
“And you didn’t immediately Floo over to talk some sense into me?” he asks weakly.  
  
A piece of cooked apple soars across the room and lands next to Hermione’s hand. She and Harry turn to see both Arthur and Draco regarding them guiltily.  
  
“A little bit too much range on that one, boys,” she says and they turn away, whispering furiously. “I did Floo over last night, as it happens, but you weren’t there.”  
  
“Ah,” Harry says, scrubbing at his hair and avoiding her eyes.  
  
Hermione smiles. “Considering all the years you’ve been mad about him, you seem very embarrassed now that you’ve got him.”  
  
Feeling himself flushing, Harry tries to glare at her. “Stop it.”  
  
“I will… eventually,” she says with a shark’s smile. “I’m not going to ask you for details, although Ron might.”  
  
“Good to know,” Harry says, just as the back door opens and Ron pushes Rose into the kitchen, followed by Hugo, George, Percy and his family.  
  
After a moment, Ginny appears, clinging to Blaise’s back and attempting to cover his mouth with her hands. Despite her best efforts, a strangled rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ manages to escape, which is quickly picked up by Arthur, and before long, the kitchen is a jumble of festive chaos. Harry glances at Draco to find that he is watching the havoc with wide eyes but hasn’t stopped holding Arthur’s compression spell for a moment.  
  
“Hello, Q!” Ron shouts as he passes on the way to the table.  
  
“Hello, Weasley,” Draco says, and then frowns. “Everyone’s a Weasley. It’s Weasleys all the way down.”  
  
“You finally came to your senses, mate,” Ron says, pulling up a chair and indicating the paper.  
  
Harry stares at him, and then at the bold headline that simply reads: POTTER QUITS MINISTRY.  
  
“You don’t think I’m crazy?” he asks.  
  
“I think you’re crazy for not leaving sooner,” Ron says, wincing when Percy’s small daughter runs headfirst into his knee. “Use your eyes, Lucy-goose.”  
  
The little girl giggles and crawls under the table to play with Murdoch, who has, up until this point, been behaving suspiciously well.  
  
“Who said goose?” Hugo demands, and then dives under the table to honk at his cousin.  
  
“I don’t see why you couldn’t deep-fry a turkey, as long as the thing you’re going to fry it in is big enough, and you use plenty of heat-resistant charms around the kitchen,” Draco says, and Arthur claps him on the back, beaming.  
  
“You see, Molly? I’ve got a great big metal bin in the shed and Draco says it’s alright.”  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione exchange glances. Molly turns from the stove, wooden spoon pointed at her husband.  
  
“I’m sorry about this, Draco,” she says, and then fixes Arthur with a terrifying look. “I don’t care if Hester Boddington himself comes to this house on Christmas morning and tells you to do it, you are not going to deep-fry that lovely turkey in a rubbish bin!”  
  
Her voice is so loud that, just for a moment, everyone else in the kitchen falls silent. Then, just as if her outburst hadn’t happened, all the conversations resume and Blaise starts singing again, now spinning Rose’s chair in circles and making her shriek with delight.  
  
“I saw Kingsley on Friday,” Ron says, leaning closer and dropping his voice. “He’s worried about you. Said you were acting strange, talking about cake and then some stuff you were going to send him?”  
  
“Harry, please tell me you aren’t doing what I think you’re doing,” Draco says, having stepped away from Arthur without any of them noticing.  
  
There’s an edge to his tone that strikes Harry somewhere raw. “No,” he promises. “It’s not like that. I know you don’t want your job back, but if Kingsley sees those reports he’ll find out what she’s really like. He deserves to know that, and so does everyone who still has to work with her.”  
  
“You’re not trying to get my job back?” Draco says, visibly calmer already.  
  
“No. I know you don’t want to work there. I don’t want to work there either,” Harry says.  
  
Draco holds the eye contact for long seconds. Harry stays perfectly still. After a moment, a quiet sort of acceptance seems to pass between them and Draco returns to Arthur’s side.  
  
“I wish I’d seen the two of you together years ago,” Hermione sighs.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I’d’ve been able to tell you he was mad about you, too,” Hermione says. “You’re both idiots,” she adds, but she’s smiling as she rests her head on Harry’s shoulder and squeezes his arm.  
  
Ron smiles, too, watching Draco and his father talking rapidly and scribbling away at a notepad on the kitchen counter.  
  
“I’ll send that stuff for you tomorrow,” he says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to rescue my daughter before Blaise makes her sick.”  
  
Ron gets up from the table and Harry picks up the newspaper, scanning the story and finding that it has very few real details and an awful lot of hand-wringing about what Harry Potter is possibly going to do next.  
  
He’s going to open a Scandinavian-themed café for Muggles in a little northern town. He’s going to sell tea and bakewell tarts and hide magical creatures in the walls.  
  
“I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?” he says, and Hermione laughs.  
  
“I don’t know, have you?”  
  
“Well… considering that the plan was to be an Auror and maybe move into training or politics… yeah. I’ve quit my job, taken up with a deranged scientist and become an equal partner in a haunted tea shop. I’ve sort of gone off track, haven’t I?”  
  
Hermione pushes rebellious curls out of her face and rests her chin on one hand, gazing at him evenly.  
  
“Off track? You think I’ve stayed on it, don’t you?” she says. “Believe me, none of this is how I planned my life.”  
  
Harry looks around anxiously, but no one is listening to their conversation. Rose is now in Blaise’s arms as Ron spins Hugo and Lucy in her chair, and everyone else seems to be hovering around the food preparation area as though hoping their presence will make their lunch cook faster.  
  
“It’s fine, Harry. I know when they’re listening to me. Look, I was going to do all sorts of things. I was going to travel, learn all sorts of languages, try out different relationships, have this huge, successful career…” Hermione shrugs. “I didn’t plan to marry my first boyfriend and end up being a stay-at-home mum and a primary school teacher because my daughter’s school literally couldn’t accommodate her.”  
  
“You’re not happy?” Harry says, quietly horrified that he hasn’t noticed before.  
  
She laughs gently. “Of course I’m happy. I wouldn’t change a thing. The point is, you have to take life as it comes, Harry. I think you’ve been waiting and hoping for a long time for everything to come together, for something to make sense, and now it has, you’re panicking. It’s natural.”  
  
“How are you so wise?” he sighs. “Most of the time I feel like I have no idea what’s going on.”  
  
“There’s a lot of time to think during nature walks and silent reading time,” she says, and then grins. “I know you, Harry. I know how your mind works.”  
  
“It doesn’t,” he says, allowing Hugo to climb into his lap. “How are you? Feeling dizzy?”  
  
“No,” Hugo says, but he wobbles slightly and has to grab onto Harry’s jumper for support. “Can we come and see the whiffles again soon?”  
  
“Yes,” Harry says. “But first we have a lot of work to do to make the place nice, so you’ll have to wait a little bit.”  
  
“What work?”  
  
“Well, we have to paint the walls and put up shelves… make the tables and chairs look nice… clean the windows… get lots of tea and coffee and cakes to sell…”  
  
“We’ll have to go to Gringotts to get lots of money,” Draco puts in. “Do you know what lives underneath Gringotts?”  
  
Hugo shakes his head, eyes wide.  
  
“Dragons,” Draco says, and Hugo swivels to look back at Harry, as though waiting for him to confirm this fact.  
  
“That’s right,” he says. “The dragons are there to guard all the money people keep in the vaults.”  
  
“I don’t have a vault,” Hugo says, crestfallen, but then he brightens. “I have a piggy bank. It’s pink because it’s a pig but it has white ears with spots on them because it’s a special pig. I put my pocket money in it.”  
  
“That’s very sensible, Hugo,” Percy says, taking Ron’s vacated seat. “It’s never too early to start saving money.”  
  
Hugo nods vaguely and then turns back to Harry. “Does it cost lots of money to buy all that stuff, Uncle Harry? Because… because I’ve got three Galleons and two Sickles and four Knuts… I had five Knuts but I think the cat ate one. Do you want it? I’m not using it. You have to take care of the whiffles.”  
  
Harry glances at Draco, catching his surprised little smile, and then back at his nephew.  
  
“I promise we can take care of the whiffles. You keep your money—you never know when you might need it.”  
  
Hugo sticks out his chin. “You have it. But I want to keep my pig.”  
  
Harry looks at Hermione, who shrugs. “It’s his money. All the money he has in the world and he wants to give it to you. I’m not about to discourage him.”  
  
“Well, thank you very much,” Harry says, turning when he hears a distressed little sob behind him. “What’s the matter, Rose?”  
  
“Hugo gave you all his money for the whiffles,” she says, face crumpled. “I want to give you mine but I spent it all on stuff for the g—on secret things!”  
  
“What secret things?” Hugo asks, and Rose bursts into tears.  
  
She turns and wheels herself out of the kitchen. Hermione takes several long, calm breaths and then goes after her. Percy watches her out of sight, apparently perplexed.  
  
“Is this accurate?” he asks, picking up one of the flyers Harry has brought for the family. “You’re opening on the twenty-fourth?”  
  
“Just for one afternoon, but yeah,” Harry says. “Why?”  
  
“It’s just that I thought I heard you say you still had decorating to do and supplies to buy. Don’t you think you’re cutting it awfully fine?”  
  
Harry’s eyes flick to Draco, who is standing behind Percy with a bowl of apple sauce balls held in twitching fingers. He suppresses a smile.  
  
“Yeah, we probably are, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?” he says. “We like a challenge.”  
  
“I prefer a well-planned operation,” Percy says, and George swoops out of nowhere to ruffle his brother’s neat hair.  
  
“That’s you, Well-Planned Percy,” he laughs, looking at Percy’s wife. “Hey, Audrey, does he have a schedule for when you—”  
  
“George!” Molly interrupts. She shoots an apologetic look at Percy’s wife but Audrey just shrugs, used to all of them and their ways by now. “Come and sit down, all of you. Lunch is ready.”  
  
“And the apple sauce is ready for the next stage of testing,” Arthur says, beaming as Draco places the bowl in the centre of the table and pretending not to notice when several balls fling themselves into the air.  
  
“Where are Hermione and Rose?” Ron asks, just as the door opens and his wife and daughter return to the kitchen.  
  
Rose is still sniffling a little bit, but she looks much happier and she accepts meat and vegetables from her grandmother with a smile.  
  
“I told her she could give her next pocket money to the whiffles if she wanted,” Hermione explains, taking the seat next to Harry.  
  
“They’re both very generous. You should be proud of them,” he says, and she blushes.  
  
Draco sits at his other side, looking blindsided by the sheer volume and variety of food on the table. Harry rests a hand on his knee and squeezes gently, delighted by his cautious smile as Molly hands him a very full plate.  
  
“Thank you,” he says gravely, and she beams.  
  
“Isn’t anyone going to try my apple sauce?” Arthur asks.  
  
“Go on, then,” Harry says gamely, taking the dish and spooning a little green ball onto his plate.  
  
All the eyes around the table turn to fix on his meal. Arthur and Draco seem to stop breathing. All at once, the ball of sauce flips into the air, arranging itself neatly against his pork and drawing little sounds of surprise from everyone. Just when it seems to be safe to start eating, the sauce explodes, covering Harry’s jumper in little chunks of apple and easily attracting Murdoch from under the table to help with the clean-up.  
  
“Back to the drawing board,” Arthur says. He turns to Draco. “Next time?”  
  
“Next time will be Christmas dinner and if either one of you explodes anything on my best tablecloth, you won’t be getting any turkey until it’s cleaned up. Without magic,” Molly says sternly, and then she looks at Draco and her expression softens. “You will be coming for Christmas dinner, won’t you?”  
  
Draco blinks. “Yes… thank you. I promise not to ruin your tablecloth.”  
  
When Molly turns away to talk to Ginny, Arthur elbows Draco and grins, miming something that looks suspiciously like deep-frying a turkey in a metal bin.  
  
Beside him, Harry nudges Murdoch, who is still trying to climb into his lap, and cuts into his roast pork with a secret smile. Draco has been threatened, drawn into Arthur’s madness, and given more food than he can really manage. He has been accepted.  
  
“Just one or two tweaks,” Arthur says, spelling green mush out of his cardigan and looking hopefully around the table. “Apple sauce, anyone?”


	21. Chapter Twenty-one

**Twenty-first of December**  – buttered toast  
  
  
  
Despite a lovely afternoon with his family and a calm, warm evening with Draco and Murdoch, Harry sleeps badly, and Percy’s words still echo in his head as he buys breakfast bacon and tea from Mike, who has displayed his Garrett’s flyer in a prominent position and doesn’t seem to be worried in the slightest about the competition.  
  
“What if we really do have too much to do?” he asks Draco, who is scrutinising the dining room with narrowed eyes and doesn’t appear to be fully paying attention.  
  
“Yes, I see what you mean,” he says vaguely, and then turns to Harry. “Where are they?”  
  
“You’re not listening to me, are you?”  
  
“No,” Draco admits. “I think I’ve lost the whiffles.”  
  
Harry stares. “ _Lost_  them?”  
  
“We’ve been here at least fifteen minutes and they’re always out by now. I can’t even hear them moving around in the walls,” Draco says, and his genuine anxiety tugs at Harry’s heart.  
  
He sets down the breakfast bag and looks around. There are no whiffles gathering around the idling steam machine, none sitting on Murdoch’s back, and the absence of the spiky little buggers crowding around his feet as he moves is rather unsettling. Frowning, he walks into the kitchen and then stops, hearing a rustle behind him. He backtracks slowly and then bursts into laughter.  
  
Several hundred little eyes peer at him from the branches of the undecorated Christmas tree. The branches are so crammed with whiffles that the tree appears more blue than green, but otherwise the disguise is rather impressive.  
  
“Come here,” he says, holding his hand out to Draco.  
  
“You little buggers,” he says after a moment, tone caught between indignation and amusement. “I was worried. Get out of my tree before you make all the needles drop.”  
  
“I’d leave them in there if I were you, love,” Gladys says, and they turn to see her standing in the doorway, breathless and rain-damp. “Get them in the kitchen sharpish, the cavalry’s here.”  
  
Harry starts to ask what on earth she’s talking about but she just flaps her hands and he finds himself catching her sense of urgency. Together, he and Draco lift-drag the tree into the kitchen with the whiffles still on board, pushing Murdoch in there with them and shutting the door just as a vehicle pulls up outside, blaring an upbeat song that cuts off along with the engine.  
  
Gladys stands back, allowing them to step into the street, where a white van emblazoned with the name ‘Allerton’s’ sits, gleaming in the downpour. Craig gets out, followed by an older man in shorts, and then the side panel slides open and five other people emerge.  
  
“Hi,” Harry says, taking in this array of dusty strangers.  
  
“We’ve been rained off our other job,” Craig says, barely seeming to notice how wet any of them are getting. “I told my dad about what you’re doing and we all agreed to come and help. We’re all local lads—” He breaks off at the sound of a small cough, “And lass, and we all want to see the place up and running again.”  
  
Harry glances at Draco, astonished. “You’re going to plaster our wall? Now?”  
  
“We’ll do as much as we can do today,” Craig says, looking around at his colleagues, who nod enthusiastically. “Darren’s the plasterer, but we’ve also got an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, and two brickies who can turn their hands to just about anything. Where do you want to start?”  
  
“Erm… let’s all get out of the rain, shall we?” Harry suggests, wondering if he’s fallen back into last night’s dream about walking into the café and finding that helpful pixies have done all the work for them.  
  
“I’ll get the kettle on,” Gladys says, scuttling into her house with apron strings flying.  
  
“Have you got electricity?” asks a man in a red woollen hat.  
  
“Since last night, according to this,” Draco says proudly, holding up his first ever letter from the power company. “It comes out of the walls.”  
  
“Usually does,” the man says, giving Draco a rather odd look.  
  
Harry squeezes his hand. “Is this actually happening?”  
  
Draco shakes his head and looks around at the dining room, which is now swarming with various tradespeople.  
  
“I really couldn’t tell you.”  
  
Abruptly, he lets go of Harry’s hand and sprints over to the kitchen door, locking it with a silent wandless spell that sparks a surprising heat in the pit of Harry’s stomach.  
  
“We don’t need any work doing in the kitchen,” Draco says loudly. “I’ve locked the door because it’s… hazardous in there. If you need water, the bathroom is through the door on the left.”  
  
The trades stop what they are doing for a moment and regard him with curiosity. Just as quickly, they seem to shrug as one and return to their inspection of the dining room.  
  
“They’ll be fine in there,” Draco whispers, returning to Harry’s side. “Besides, I want them to get used to the kitchen. It’s going to be their home during business hours. It’s a perfect environment for them, if you think about it.”  
  
“ _Steam_ ,” Harry says, shaking his head. “Of course. Once the kitchen is working…”  
  
“Exactly. They’ll be happy, the customers won’t be any the wiser, and all we have to do is figure out how to work in there without constantly tripping over them.”  
  
“Draco, do you actually know how to cook?” Harry asks, concerned that the thought hasn’t occurred to him before.  
  
“Cooking is science,” Draco says, shrugging. “I know how to follow instructions.”  
  
With his question left very much unanswered, Harry wonders if he should push the issue, but then Darren the plasterer walks into Draco’s eyeline and he knows there is no use.  
  
“You can come with me,” Draco says, steering poor Darren towards the problem wall. “Harry knows about everything else.”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to protest, but within seconds he finds himself at the centre of a mass of trades, all of whom have questions that he barely knows how to answer. Still feeling as though he’s in a very strange dream, he attempts to deal with each enquiry in turn, relieved when Gladys shows up with an enormous tea tray containing a steaming mug for everyone.  
  
“Had to fill the kettle twice,” she says, beaming as many hands arrive to bear away her generosity. “They look like a capable lot, don’t they?”  
  
Harry has to agree that they do. The Allerton’s team ranges in age from an apprentice just out of his teens to the company owner, John, who must be sixty but carries himself with the energy and lightness of a much younger man. The majority of them are well-muscled and chunky, and even the carpenter, a tiny dark-haired girl in her mid-twenties, seems to be much stronger than she looks.  
  
“Like an ant, isn’t she?” Gladys says, watching her lift a mysterious but enormous bit of kit from the van with apparent ease. “They can carry fifty times their body weight, you know.”  
  
Harry wraps his cold fingers around his mug. “Is that so?”  
  
Gladys nods. “Bob fell asleep in front of the telly so I put that David Attenborough thing on. You’re never too old to learn.”  
  
“That’s very true, Gladys,” Harry says and she smiles, retreating back to her house when Craig approaches him with a question about the floor.  
  
“To be honest, Craig, I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admits, and Craig just laughs.  
  
“Property developers never do. That said, looks like you’re planning on hanging around, so you should at least have some input in the design.” He scratches his head and looks around at the sea of workers, the dust sheets and buckets and heavy tools all ready to use Draco’s brand new electricity. “Come on. Grab your lists and let’s go and get some stuff.”  
  
Feeling strangely excited, Harry retrieves the lists, conducts a brief conversation with a very distracted Draco, and jumps into the van with Craig. As they head out onto the main road out of Blackwell, Harry takes in the thick, dog-eared book on the dashboard, the bottles of Lucozade in the footwell and the strange, sweet smell that he can’t quite place.  
  
Craig laughs, catching him wrinkling his nose. “It’s pear drops. Dad’s obsessed with them. I’ve mostly stopped noticing the smell but the others are always complaining about it. Listen, let me get the stuff when we get there—we get a trade discount.”  
  
“Whatever you say,” Harry agrees. “Like I said, I have no idea about any of this.”  
  
Craig drums his fingers on the wheel. “Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Go for it.”  
  
“You and Draco… you’re a couple, aren’t you?”  
  
Harry tenses slightly but nods. “Yeah.”  
  
  
Craig grins. “That boy thinks he knows everything.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Brendan. He says he can ‘always tell’ and he said no way were you together.” Craig glances at Harry, expression earnest. “I’m not going to say anything to him, that’s your business. I do like it when he’s wrong, though.”  
  
“Everyone knows everything about everybody around here, don’t they?” Harry says. “It’s not like London at all.”  
  
Craig snorts, turning the van into the car park of a large DIY superstore. “No, thank god. I went there once. Couldn’t find a parking space anywhere.”  
  
With that, he pulls triumphantly into a spot near the entrance and jumps out of the van. Harry follows him, and together they walk through every aisle in the place, referring frequently to the list, which just grows as Craig pulls it out of Harry’s hands and scribbles in additional items with a stubby pencil. When they return to Garrett’s with paint and floorboards and bags full of stuff that Harry is promised he doesn’t need to understand, the work in the dining room is well underway.  
  
Unsurprisingly, Draco is watching the plastering process with rapt interest. Darren, to his credit, is working skilfully while answering a constant flow of questions, and doesn’t appear to mind the distraction even a little bit. On the opposite wall, Jess the carpenter is creating a selection of long shelves in beautiful blond wood, and several of the others are carefully filling holes and sanding the peeling paint from doorframes and windowsills. All of this activity seems to move to the beat of the loud, sunny music that blares from a paint-spattered radio, making Harry wonder if the lot of them might just break into a song and dance routine at any moment.  
  
Gladys returns with more tea, and when some of the workers start to make noises about breakfast, she looks rather upset.  
  
“I was going to make toast for everybody but my toaster gave up before I even got all the bread into it,” she sighs. “They could go to the Breakfast Barrel, I suppose, but I wouldn’t like to see Mike’s face when they walk in all covered in dust like that.”  
  
“No, we don’t want to give him a heart attack, do we?” Harry says, taking a mug of tea from the tray as he thinks. “Right. Okay. I’ll be back in a few minutes, everyone, and then we’ll do breakfast.”  
  
He puts down his cup with a twinge of regret and dashes out into the rain. Knowing that today is not a day for casually throwing around drying charms, he runs as fast as he can and arrives at the hardware store dripping and breathing hard. Confident in Draco’s assertion that this little shop really does sell everything, he states his needs to the sprightly old lady behind the counter and is back out on the street before he can stop to wonder if she really runs the place all by herself.  
  
At the supermarket on the corner, he buys bread, milk, butter and a handful of other essentials, then races back to Garrett’s and into the kitchen. With two four-slice toasters and a full kettle on the go, he nips next door to borrow some plates and knives from Gladys, who gives him a light scolding for his disorganisation but piles flowery crockery into his arms anyway. When he returns, toast is popping up everywhere and the whiffles have flocked to the counter, drawn by the steaming kettle.  
  
“Not helping, guys,” he mutters, but when he reaches for his first piece of toast, he is startled to see that they have formed a swarm and are slowly edging a plate across the counter towards him.  
  
Impressed, he holds out a butter knife and then lets it drop. The whiffles at the tail end of the plate-moving group bounce to catch it, carrying it on their bristles and surging to return it to Harry. Seconds later, the knife slides onto the plate and the counter explodes into victorious crackling.  
  
“I take it back,” Harry says, picking up the plate and knife and setting to work on the toast. “That was very helpful. I wonder what else you can do.”  
  
Murdoch barks to be included and several hundred eyes shoot out on stalks to peer down at him from the counter. The daft dog jumps up and knocks one of Gladys’s plates to the floor, where it shatters into pieces.  
  
Harry sighs. “I will fix that in a minute, and none of you will ever say a word to Gladys. Understood?”  
  
Murdoch cringes to the floor and fixes Harry with remorseful dark eyes. Slowly, the whiffles drift down to him, most of them forming a chain to retrieve the pieces of plate while Murdoch’s groupies arrange themselves protectively along his back. Keeping half an eye on all of them, Harry jams more bread into the toaster and butters furiously, keeping the fresh toast warm under a charm and repeating the process until the whole kitchen smells delicious and he has an enormous stack of hot buttered toast and yet more tea to take to the hungry workers.  
  
He is set upon the moment he steps into the dining room, everyone taking a plate and a cup with enthusiastic thanks until there is nothing left, and all he can hear is loud music and crunching sounds. He settles on the floor beside Draco, who is slowly consuming a slice of toast and watching Darren, who is still working, albeit with a whole slice shoved into his mouth.  
  
“He can’t stop yet,” Draco explains. “The plaster will go off before he’s finished.”  
  
“Sorry,” Harry says, and Darren shrugs, pulling most of the toast from his teeth.  
  
“S’alright,” he says. “I’ll get a break later when that lot are doing your floor.”  
  
“You can help paint, though,” John says, wandering by with his mug of tea and inspecting Darren’s work.  
  
“We can help with the painting,” Draco says, surprising a laugh from Harry. “What? I can paint.”  
  
“I’m not saying you can’t. I’ve just never seen you do it before.”  
  
“It’s not post-impressionism or anything, lad, I’m sure you’ll manage,” John says. “We need all the help we can get if you want the inside and the outside painted before it gets dark.”  
  
“That’s a thought,” Draco says, setting down his empty plate. “What we really need is a sign writer. Do you know one?”  
  
John shakes his head. He looks around at his crew but everyone just shrugs apologetically.  
  
“Joe might do it for you,” Craig says suddenly. “He’s not really a sign-writer but he did go to art school.”  
  
Draco looks at Harry and he concedes, holding up his hands. “Yeah, okay, I’ll go and ask.”  
  
By the time Harry returns from the library with good news from Joe, everyone has returned to work and the rain has finally stopped. Inspired by their impressive work ethic, Harry picks up a paintbrush and helps Craig and his apprentice to sand down the wooden shopfront and coat it with a brand new layer of gloss. Inside, the sawing and drilling continues under the watchful eye of Draco, who is doing an irritatingly good job of painting the woodwork for someone who isn’t really looking at what he’s doing.  
  
Gladys appears at regular intervals with tea and constructive criticism, and she is far from the only visitor. Drawn in by the noise and activity, the people of Blackwell arrive in ones and twos and little groups to investigate the goings-on at the new Garrett’s. In an enterprising moment, Draco places the remaining flyers in a box at the door and instructs Harry to give one to anyone who stops. The box is empty by the time the exterior painting is complete, and Harry takes it inside, aching and covered in paint but humming with accomplishment. Joe’s artistic input will make the outside of the shop complete, and the inside is coming together all in a rush.  
  
Draco’s oil lamps have been replaced by quirky light fittings that spill old-fashioned bulbs from hooks in the ceiling. They come to life at the flick of a switch, filling the dining room with a soft, clean glow and casting striking shadows against the smooth, white ceiling. On the longest bare wall, Jess has installed chunky shelves of varying lengths, creating a maze of storage that is sturdy and ready to house teapots, books and ornaments.  
  
Darren’s freshly plastered wall is a work of art, smooth to the touch and already beginning to dry in shades of pink and orange, while the other walls have been painted in crisp white, with accents of rich red and soft blue. John has laid a floor of silvery bleached wood planks, stretching from the front door to the kitchen and making the whole room seem instantly warm and friendly.  
  
Harry isn’t sure what time it is when the miracle workers from Allerton’s finally pack up their things, but the sky is pitch dark and Kaspar has turned off all the lights in the newsagent’s shop. Draco is still inside, staring at his new dining room in quiet disbelief, but Harry follows John out to the van and gives him all the Muggle money in his pocket. It doesn’t seem nearly enough, but John smiles at him, and shrugs easily when Harry promises to sort out the invoice as soon as it arrives.  
  
“It’s a good thing you’re doing here,” he says, gazing at Harry and then through the window at Draco, who is still running his fingers over the fresh plaster. “It’s good for the community. I’m still not sure why two London lads would want to set up shop here, but I’m glad you have.”  
  
“Thank you,” Harry says. He shivers, but even in his shorts, the cold air doesn’t seem to touch John. “For everything. I hope you’ll all come and have some tea and cake on us when we open.”  
  
John nods and climbs into the van. From the driver’s seat, Craig waves, and then pulls away, leaving Harry alone on the freezing pavement.  
  
“Have they gone, love?” Gladys asks from her doorway.  
  
“Hang on a minute,” Harry says, dashing into the café and returning moments later with a nearly-new four slice toaster. “This is for you. We didn’t really need two and I know you need one.”  
  
Gladys takes the toaster, open-mouthed. “You don’t have to, love.”  
  
“I know. You don’t have to come over and help us cook tomorrow, either, but Draco told me you offered,” he counters.  
  
Gladys smiles and then turns stern. “You can sell my hot chocolate but you can’t have the recipe,” she says, as though Harry has shrieked in her face and demanded it. “I’ll bring you the powder when you need it, but that blend is going to my grave with me.”  
  
“Sounds fair,” Harry says, deciding there and then that he wouldn’t argue for her recipe if his life depended on it. It’s quite possible that she could take him, wand or no wand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
  
Gladys just nods, but Harry hears her cry of ‘Bob, the boys have got us a toaster!’ just before he closes the door.  
  
“I was thinking we should just do the rest of the decorating now,” Draco says, getting out his wand and examining it.  
  
“You’re insane,” Harry says, covering a yawn. “Why now?”  
  
“I think we need to,” Draco says simply.  
  
Harry groans inwardly. What he needs is a hot bath and a good night’s sleep. He needs a proper meal and a sit down on something soft in front of an open fire, preferably with Draco pressed up against him and… the point is, what he doesn’t need is to ignore all of that and spend the next few hours messing about with difficult transfiguration.  
  
“Why?” he asks again, already knowing he’s going to give in.  
  
“It’s so close to being finished,” Draco says. “I’m not expecting any of this to make sense to you but I feel as though I’ll be cheating if I don’t do the rest of it before I go to sleep tonight.”  
  
Harry stares at him, at his paint-streaked shirt, the weary lines on his forehead, the pure stubbornness in the eyes that hold his. He takes a long, deep breath. “Okay.”  
  
Draco seems to relax, just a fraction, catching Harry up in a hug that smells like plaster dust and feels like everything he needs to keep going just for a little bit longer. Together, they retrieve the tatty old dining chairs and tables and set to work on transforming them into something that will look at home in the new café. Referring frequently to his reference pictures, Harry focuses all of his magical energy on the task, relieved when the wood begins to lighten and thicken, holding on until the chair in front of him looks almost exactly like the one in the photograph.  
  
Draco looks up from the table he is transfiguring to match. “One down… forty-nine to go.”  
  
Harry considers a stinging hex but in the end decides to conserve his energy.  
  
The work is draining and difficult, and Harry’s fingers are soon full of splinters, but he presses on, ignoring his full bladder and his dry mouth and the twinges in his back, because Draco may be stubborn, but he has no idea who he’s competing with. Not that Draco seems to be competing, Harry will admit; he seems only to be sitting happily on the floor, legs crossed and wand held carefully in both hands, spelling spindly dark tables into heavy, light-coloured ones, but Harry is tired and he’s pretty sure his mind has gone off somewhere without him.  
  
He hopes it’s somewhere nice.  
  
When the tables and chairs are finally ready, Draco pushes them around the room, setting up different configurations here, there and everywhere. Harry watches, spelling the splinters from his skin and deciding not to comment when Draco takes two of his chairs and changes them into a low-slung red sofa, which he then arranges near the window.  
  
Yawning every couple of minutes now, Harry grabs the bag of plain white scatter cushions he had bought in the DIY store and commandeers the new sofa.  
  
“I’m testing it,” he says, yawning again and spelling each cushion red or blue at random.  
  
He has a feeling that there is supposed to be a design on them—a design, in fact, a lot like the pretty folk art motif that Draco is currently creating on the chimney breast with his wand—but he can’t quite reconcile that idea with staying awake, so the cushions will just have to do as they are.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, when Draco looks at him for a long time and says nothing. “I’m too tired for patterns.”  
  
“I love you,” Draco says, mouth flickering at one corner as he turns back to his spell.  
  
Harry stares at the back of his head for long seconds, heart swooping and exhausted brain whirring helplessly.  
  
“Draco?”  
  
“Yes?” he says, stepping back from the chimney breast to survey his work.  
  
“I love you, too. Please can you come and sit down now?”  
  
Draco smiles. “I suppose it’s finished enough for now. I should go and let everyone out of the kitchen.”  
  
“No,” Harry sighs, but when Draco walks away, he drops his wand on the sofa and closes his eyes.  
  
Seconds later, he has a dog on his feet and several whiffles in his hair. Draco sits beside him, pulling up his feet and leaning against his side. Harry wraps an arm around him and tugs him in close.  
  
“We really shouldn’t sleep here,” Draco says, and then there is silence.


	22. Chapter Twenty-two

**Twenty-second of December**  – tinsel  
  
  
  
Harry leans against the wall with a fresh mug of tea in his hands and looks around at the café’s pristine new interior. His café, he corrects himself. Theirs, officially, now that he has been down to Gringotts and overseen the transfer of his half of the gold from his vault to Draco’s. He always pays his way and doesn’t intend on making this place an exception, even if Draco’s startled expression when he’d told him as much had made Harry want to laugh and hand back all the bills and paperwork he had taken to examine.  
  
Draco, crouching on the floor and frowning at the steam machine through his eyeglass, still seems half-convinced that the entire situation is about to collapse beneath him, leaving him alone in his office at the Ministry, awaiting the wrath of Seddon and wondering just what the fuck he’s been thinking of for the past three weeks. Harry has tried to reassure him, but the insane brilliance of the whole thing is not lost on him either, and in the end, all he can do is hang on and promise Draco that whatever happens, there is no going back.  
  
All they have to do is gather enough ‘yes, we know exactly what we’re doing’ to convince the people of Blackwell for one afternoon, and after yesterday, anything seems possible. Following a surprisingly comfortable night on their new sofa, they have carefully dried and painted the newly plastered wall and acquired a staggering amount of plates, cups and cutlery from a shop in Diagon Alley that had promised to stock ‘every china pattern that has ever existed’.  
  
With the help of Ron’s connections at the Ministry, the dining room and kitchen fireplaces have now been connected to the Floo Network, each carefully warded by a technician in royal blue robes, who had supplied them with several leaflets on fire travel safety before disappearing into their brand new green flames with a sober nod.  
  
The Christmas tree is once again full of whiffles, but Draco, deep in concentration, doesn’t seem to have noticed.  
  
“Do you want to help me decorate, or should we just make them glittery and have done with it?” Harry asks.  
  
Draco looks up slowly. “You know, I tried, but not a bit of that made sense.”  
  
Harry points at the tree. Draco sighs. “Tempted as I am to put them to work, I can only imagine the mess they’d make when they got bored and started bouncing around the room.”  
  
“We’re going to put them to work in the kitchen, anyway,” Harry says, smiling to himself. “Gladys will be thrilled.”  
  
“Gladys will be here any minute,” Draco says, glancing at the door and then attracting the whiffles out of the branches by switching on the steam machine. “What exactly are we going to put on the tree?”  
  
“These,” Harry says, grabbing a box from under the nearest table and setting it down. “I got them from home on the way back from Gringotts. I’ve been here so much that I didn’t even think about getting a tree this year, and they should be used.”  
  
Draco gets up and comes to peer into the box. “None of them match,” he says, puzzled.  
  
“Well, no,” Harry agrees. “Some of them were in boxes of stuff I found when I moved into number twelve. I tested them all for dark magic and threw out all the ones that were just creepy. The others I bought from all different places. A new one every year… except this year.”  
  
Draco meets his eyes for a moment, catching his little flicker of sadness.  
  
“You did buy one this year,” he points out. “It’s hanging in my living room window.”  
  
Harry smiles, pulling Draco close and breathing him in. Draco leans against him, and he allows himself to bask in the memory of sunlight streaming through stained glass panels and warm bare skin under soft wool.  
  
“You’re absolutely right,” he says. “And that’s a great place for it.”  
  
Draco kisses him and then frowns, eyes caught by something over Harry’s shoulder. He steps back, fishing something out of the box and examining it with bemusement.  
  
“What exactly is this?”  
  
“It’s a Christmas anaconda,” Harry says, as though it should be obvious.  
  
Draco pulls the tinsel monstrosity out of the box until all ten feet of it is draped over his arms and shoulders. His eyes flick over the various glittering shades of green and gold, and when he retrieves the head end and stares at it in confusion, Harry can’t help laughing.  
  
“Why does It have a head?”  
  
Harry takes the tinsel snake’s head and tilts it from side to side, making the shiny red forked tongue flap around.  
  
“It’s a snake. Don’t you think it would be weird if it didn’t have a head?”  
  
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Draco admits. “Where did you get it?”  
  
“One of those discount shops near the Ministry,” Harry says. “You’d been talking that day about how reptiles were misunderstood, and I saw this, and it reminded me of you, so I bought it.”  
  
“Obvious compliment aside,” Draco says drily, “I have no memory of that conversation.”  
  
“Well, it was about four years ago,” Harry admits, and then immediately wants to jump into the box and hide beneath his decorations.  
  
Draco’s eyes find his anyway. “Four years ago, you bought this ridiculous tinsel snake because it reminded you of me?”  
  
“It sounds a bit pathetic when you put it like that,” Harry says, turning to the window in an attempt to not look at Draco and realising that it has begun to snow again.  
  
“Not pathetic,” Draco says, turning his head with gentle fingertips and regarding him with heartbreaking sincerity. “Surprising. And illuminating.”  
  
“Oh?” Harry asks, heart already full to bursting as he looks at Draco, draped in cheap tinsel and still lightly spattered with white paint.  
  
“Yes. I don’t plan to waste any more time when it comes to you,” Draco says, and then his lips are on Harry’s and everything else around them falls away.  
  
“That sounds… yeah,” Harry mumbles, letting his eyes close.  
  
They open again quite abruptly when the door swings open and Gladys clatters into the shop.  
  
“Now, I hope you’ve got everything I told you to get, because I’ve brought my recipes and we haven’t got time for messing about,” she says, bustling past them and seeming not to notice the private moment she has just interrupted. “Have you preheated the oven?”  
  
“Not yet,” Draco says faintly, stepping away from Harry and seeming to shake himself. “Let’s do that now, shall we?”  
  
“Well now,” Gladys says, staring at a bare patch of floor and beaming. “I saw them for a good few seconds before they disappeared this time. Perhaps they’re getting used to me.”  
  
Harry follows her eyes and realises that the whiffles are nowhere to be seen.  
  
“Usually, non-magic people can’t see them at all,” he says.  
  
Gladys laughs. “They must be able to sense my Dennis somehow. He’d like that.”  
  
“Did he like animals?” Draco asks as they follow her into the kitchen.  
  
“Oh, yes. Rescuing injured birds, keeping hedgehogs in boxes under his bed, you name it. He’d have loved you,” she says to Murdoch, and then unceremoniously shuts the door in his face. “We don’t need dogs under our feet.”  
  
Harry doesn’t suppose that they need whiffles under their feet, either, but the little buggers have reassembled in the kitchen before Gladys has even finished checking the bags of ingredients, and while she’s still unable to see them, she can see the objects that they move around the kitchen and she can definitely feel the brush of little points around her ankles.  
  
“Good heavens, what was that?” she gasps for the third time in as many minutes, peering down at her feet, while at the other end of the kitchen, a whisk bounces along several inches above the counter top.  
  
“I’ll switch the steam back on,” Draco says, walking carefully back into the dining room and returning to find Gladys with her hands over her ears. Without missing a beat, he turns and walks back out, casts a silencing charm and then returns.  
  
“Better?” he asks, and Gladys nods.  
  
She produces her recipe book and shows them page after yellowed page of handwritten instructions for rock buns, Eccles cakes, jam tarts, and every other traditional cake and biscuit Harry can think of. Together, they make a list of everything they need to make for their Christmas Eve opening, and then, with Gladys’s supervision, they set to work. The kitchen is soon warm and aromatic, the scents of icing sugar and dried fruit competing with those of the bread rising on the windowsill and the sweet snap of bubbling homemade jam.  
  
By the time there are pans on all four hob burners, the kitchen steam has attracted back at least half of the whiffles, and Gladys just sighs, setting down her slippered feet with care and shaking her head whenever a bag of sugar or flour isn’t quite where she left it. Murdoch, still banished to the dining room and, despite his best efforts, unable to follow his whiffle friends through the walls, bumps against the door at regular intervals, hoping to be included.  
  
When they break for tea and what Gladys calls ‘a good old fashioned sit down’, Draco produces a library book about Scandinavian cooking and shows the old lady several pages marked with little scraps of paper.  
  
“Orange and poppy seed cake?” she reads dubiously. “That sounds a bit _unusual_.”  
  
“I think it sounds good,” Harry says.  
  
“I don’t think we’ve got any poppy seeds, love,” Gladys says. “Probably need to go to a fancy shop to get them.”  
  
“I got them at the supermarket on the corner,” Draco says, looking pleased with himself. “Shall we have a go?”  
  
“If you like, love,” Gladys concedes, still regarding the recipe with suspicion. When someone knocks at the door, she looks up, amused. “I used to have a cockatoo looked a bit like that. Bless him.”  
  
Harry follows her eyes, unsurprised to see Joe the librarian standing on the pavement, rainbow Mohican dotted with snow. He gets up to let him in and Draco and Gladys disappear back into the kitchen, seeming not to have noticed that Murdoch is right behind them.  
  
“You’ve been working hard—it looks brilliant in here,” Joe says, and his admiring glances at the walls and furniture fill Harry with pride.  
  
“We’ve had a lot of help.”  
  
Joe grins. “I heard. So… what sort of sign were you thinking of?”  
  
Harry shows him Draco’s sketch, the measurements and the remaining white and dark blue paint. Joe nods, stands in the snow for several minutes, staring up at the shopfront, and then takes everything and jogs back to the library.  
  
“Apparently, he’s going to work on it in the function room and then come and put it up when the snow’s stopped,” Harry says, watching Draco plunge his hands into a mixing bowl full of flour and butter. Something about the image makes his chest hurt in the most wonderful way, and he doesn’t realise he is staring until Gladys is right in front of him, poking him out of the way of her cup of tea.  
  
“Either come in here properly and slice up these tiffins or go and do something else,” she says sternly. “I’ve already got invisible whatsits under my feet, I don’t need you as well.”  
  
Feeling appropriately chastised, Harry picks up a knife and starts slicing. He wonders if Gladys and Molly would get along like a house on fire or drive each other completely mad. Perhaps it’s best not to know.  
  
Darkness is falling by the time Gladys goes home to Bob, leaving Harry and Draco exhausted but grateful for her expertise. Between the three of them, they have produced a mountain of cakes, biscuits, tray-bakes and several experimental loaves of bread. Everything that can be stuffed into the fridge has been stuffed there, and everything else has been stored away in the cupboards under layers of protective magic.  
  
All of the washing up has been done and put neatly away at Gladys’s insistence, and now the kitchen is warm, clean, and smelling wonderful. In the dining room, Draco places the teapots he has brought from home on the brand new shelves, while Harry writes messages in chalk on the little blackboards now hung at random around the walls.  
  
_This café is sponsored by Rose and Hugo Weasley_ , he writes on one, thinking of the three Galleons and two Sickles and four Knuts that he hasn’t had the heart to spend.  
  
_Tea is not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that_ , he adds to another.  
  
_Garrett’s Café welcomes well-behaved pets and owners_ , Draco writes, taking a spare blackboard and hanging it in the window, facing outwards.  
  
Harry nods his approval and picks up Rosanna’s gold and ebony globe, looking around for a moment before finally placing it on the glass counter next to the till. When Draco evicts the whiffles from the tree yet again, Harry carries over his box of decorations, and together, they drape the branches in sparkling baubles, wooden animals and everything mismatched and unrepentantly festive. The Christmas anaconda curls around the tree with his head at the top and his tail wrapped around the trunk, tinsel body glimmering in the glow from Draco’s first ever plug-in fairy lights.  
  
When the transformation is complete, they turn the new red sofa to face the window and curl together, feet up on the empty decoration box, to watch the snow whirling down past the glass with mugs of Gladys’s secret recipe hot chocolate and equally secret samples of the day’s baking. Silence drapes around them like a comfortable blanket, broken only by the occasional crackle as the whiffles bounce and tumble around them.  
  
“Would you mind terribly removing your eye from my ear canal?” Draco says wearily.  
  
The whiffle in question does no such thing, only moving when Harry pulls Draco’s head gently into his lap and pokes the pointy little bugger with his finger. He strokes the soft, pale hair from Draco’s eyes and watches him smile slowly.  
  
“It’s ridiculous how much I love you,” Harry mumbles, and Draco laughs.  
  
“Ridiculous in what way?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry admits, flushing. “I thought I was talking to myself.”  
  
“There’s an owl.”  
  
“Well, yeah, there’s… what?”  
  
Draco lifts himself on one elbow and squints through the snow. “There’s an owl. Looks like a Ministry one.”  
  
All at once anxious and infuriated, Harry gets up and opens the door. After a moment, an official looking owl flaps into view and offers him the letter on its leg before taking off with such force that it almost knocks Harry backwards.  
  
“What do they want now?” Draco asks, and though his posture remains casual, Harry can feel his concern.  
  
He locks the door and retakes his seat, opening the letter and reading the short note.  
  
_Harry,_  
  
_I sent this with my fastest owl. I hope it gets to you in time. Seddon’s been up here asking questions about your whiffles. I don’t know why but she’s on the warpath. She wanted an expert immediately and when I told her we had no one to send, she stormed off, saying she was going to get her own. There’s a man called Eldritch Carney who used to work with us and takes these sorts of jobs, and he’s seriously tough. There’s nothing I can do but I just wanted you to be ready. Everyone at D of MC is crossing their fingers for you._  
  
_Samreen._  
  
When Harry hands the letter to Draco, his fingers are shaking. He wants to Apparate straight over there and barge into Seddon’s office, demanding to know who she thinks she is, why she is still trying to interfere with his life, Draco’s life, and just what she hopes to achieve. But he can’t do that, and if he’s honest, he has no real desire to go anywhere near that place ever again.  
  
“It was nice of her to try and warn us,” Draco says, setting the letter down.  
  
“Yeah,” Harry agrees, surprised by the lack of anger in his tone. “What exactly is Seddon’s problem?”  
  
Draco snorts. “You’ll drive yourself mad trying to work that out. What’s important is that she’s… well, she’s trying to achieve something. To make our lives miserable, to get a rise out of us for her own sad little enjoyment, who knows? We can’t let her win, Harry.”  
  
He takes a long, controlled breath, forcing the jitters of fury out into the warm air.  
  
“Yeah. Alright. But even if Sam’s owl is the fastest in the Ministry, it could still have taken hours to get here, and in the meantime…”  
  
“In the meantime, Seddon has employed the man that’s walking across the road towards us right now,” Draco interrupts, leaping to his feet and crossing the room in long strides. “I’ll get them in the kitchen—you open the door.”  
  
Harry glances at the man, who has almost reached the café, and then at Draco, who is switching on the steam machine and rolling it into the kitchen, gesturing wildly for the whiffles to follow him.  
  
“Draco,” he starts, but Draco shakes his head.  
  
“You need to speak to him. I’ll say the wrong thing, I’ll make him angry, and the next thing we know he’ll be flooding the place with tranquiliser gas and taking the whiffles away in a box.”  
  
Horrified, Harry grips the doorframe. Almost all of the whiffles are now in the kitchen and when the man raps at the door, the sound echoes around the dining room and his stomach lurches along with it.  
  
“He wouldn’t do that.”  
  
Draco says nothing. He closes the kitchen door and leans on it, as though his whiffles will stay hidden and safe by his will alone. Harry gathers himself and opens the door.  
  
“Hello, can we help you?” he asks, injecting false brightness into his tone.  
  
The man takes off his hat, revealing neat black hair and a thin, handsome face.  
  
“My name is Carney. I’ve been sent by the Ministry of Magic to perform an inspection and assessment of a magical creature or creatures. You have nothing to worry about if you just let me in and cooperate with my instructions,” the man says, glancing past Harry into the café and frowning.  
  
After a moment, he goes to enter but Harry holds onto the door, barring his way.  
  
“You want to come in now?” he asks.  
  
“That’s right, sir.”  
  
“Do you have any credentials I can see?”  
  
“I have been contracted by Vanessa Seddon of the Auror department,” the man says. “I am an independent agent but I have instructions to be here. If you contact the Auror Department in the morning, they will confirm that I have leave to be here.”  
  
“In the morning?” Harry asks.  
  
He looks around at Draco, who seems to silently will him on. Confidence growing, Harry gazes at Carney and shakes his head.  
  
“Sir, if you would just step aside. This procedure does not have to be difficult for anyone.”  
  
Harry laughs. “It doesn’t have to be difficult for us, no. Here’s the thing: you and Seddon both know that I worked for the Ministry for over ten years. During that time, I learned a few things, and it hasn’t escaped me that non-Ministry employees, even if contracted to Ministry departments, must give written notice before performing any kind of search or investigation on private property. As we have had no notice and this is indeed private property, I’m afraid you have no right to enter without our permission. Draco, do you give your permission?”  
  
“I most certainly do not,” Draco says from inside the café.  
  
“If you were to just contact the Ministry first thing tomorrow,” Carney begins, but Harry stops him.  
  
“Believe me, I’ll be doing just that, but not to find out if it’s alright for you to come into my property and mess with my stuff  _after_  you’ve already done it,” he says. “If you’d like to come back once we’ve had the proper notice, you’re well within your rights, but know this—you’ve been sent on a mission of petty revenge and Vanessa Seddon is wasting your time as well as ours.”  
  
Carney’s mouth presses into a hard line. “I will be back tomorrow. You won’t talk your way out of this, Mr Potter.”  
  
He turns and walks into the road, performing a rather undignified flail when a car almost ploughs straight into him.  
  
“Merry Christmas!” Harry yells, and then slams the door shut.  
  
He leans against the solid wood, closing his eyes as every bit of stubborn strength seems to flow out of him at once, leaving his legs unsteady and his pulse erratic.  
  
“Where on earth did that come from?” Draco asks, steps echoing on the wooden floor.  
  
A warm mouth presses against his face and strong, slender arms wrap around his shoulders.  
  
“I didn’t know I knew any of that,” Harry admits. “I suppose I must have absorbed it without realising.”  
  
“Well, it was very useful absorption,” Draco says, tone light with disbelief. “He just went away.”  
  
Harry opens his eyes. “He’ll be back.”  
  
“I don’t give a fuck,” Draco says. “He’s not taking our whiffles. They live here. He has no right to do anything with them.”  
  
“I agree,” Harry says, “but I think we might need some help. I’m going to borrow Ron and Hermione’s owl and send a letter to Rosanna.”  
  
Draco nods. “Go now. The faster we move, the more time we have before that man comes back.”  
  
Harry grabs his coat and wakes Murdoch, brushing away several whiffles that are sticking to his fur like burrs. “Are you going to be okay?”  
  
Draco folds his arms and his features settle into a formidable scowl. “Yes. And when you come back, this place will be warded to the teeth.”  
  
Picking up Murdoch, Harry steels himself, throws his powder and steps into the flames.


	23. Chapter Twenty-three

**Twenty-third of December**  – an early morning traffic jam in the rain  
  
  
  
Something cold touches Harry’s arm and he jerks to full consciousness, splashing cold water over the side of the bath and banging his head on the cast iron rim.  
  
“What the fuck?” he demands, heart pounding.  
  
He squints in the darkness of the bathroom and eventually focuses on Murdoch, who is resting his head on the rim of the tub and regarding him with mild curiosity.  
  
“You scared me to death,” he tells the dog, and the patient black eyes just continue to gaze up into his. He sighs, rubbing at his face with wet hands. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m an idiot.”  
  
With some effort, Harry sits upright in the bath, stretching out his stiff muscles and examining the wrinkled pads of his fingers. The sky outside the window is still completely dark but the grip of midwinter means that it could be almost any time, and Harry has to wait until he has wrapped himself in a towel and shambled into the bedroom to find out that it is almost seven, and the broken sleep snatched in his bathtub is likely to be all he’ll get tonight.  
  
Spending the night apart to get a few distraction-free hours of sleep might have seemed like a sensible idea at the time, but with Carney’s second visit looming, Harry has spent all of his evening and a good portion of the night wandering the house with Murdoch at his heels, thinking of nothing but Draco and whiffles and Draco all over again. He has rehearsed his furious firecall to the Ministry at least ten times, read and re-read Rosanna’s reply to his owl and gulped more cups of tea than can really be healthy.  
  
All he really wants is to be with the one person who understands, to share his rage and terror at it all, at the idea of someone ripping away their brand new little world from beneath them just because they feel like it. All he wants is Draco, and as he sits, shivering, on the edge of his bed, waiting suddenly ceases to make sense.  
  
He is vibrating with exhausted anticipation as he throws on jeans, jumper and coat and heads for the door. Every step feels oddly light as though he’s had one too many glasses of wine and his stomach flips and roils when his fingers close around his umbrella. He doesn’t trust himself to Floo or Apparate right now, but Draco’s flat is close enough and the walk might even do him good.  
  
He steps out into the rain, wondering if it’s still snowing in Blackwell and apologising to Murdoch, who is visibly disappointed at being left behind. As he walks through the maze of residential streets, the rain pours down, visible in the orange coronas of the streetlights and bouncing off the tough fabric of Harry’s umbrella. Here, the people are still sleeping, but when he turns out onto the busy road leading into the centre of London, he finds another world entirely.  
  
The weekday morning traffic is already heavy, creating lines of cars that barely move at all. Harry passes them easily, watching as they inch forward, one at a time, and stop, brake lights making a sea of swimming scarlet under the driving rain. The heavy scent of exhaust fumes fills his nostrils and he walks faster, pounding the slick pavement and thinking of the way Draco smells, sharp like citrus and sweet like bakewell tarts. In his mind, he is already sliding buttons out of their holes and dragging his mouth over warm skin, and by the time he escapes the traffic jam and finds Draco’s flat, he is half hard and trembling.  
  
He presses the buzzer at the door and waits. After a brief pause, Draco’s weary voice drifts out of the speaker.  
  
“Felix is downstairs, 2A, and have you any idea what time it is?”  
  
Harry blinks, puzzled. “Draco, it’s me,” he says, and the door clicks open.  
  
He folds down his umbrella and jogs up the stairs, finding Draco’s door ajar. He enters, closes it behind him and follows the unmistakeable sounds of tea making to the kitchen. Draco is leaning against the counter, wearing a stripy bathrobe and rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Who’s Felix?” Harry asks, fighting the urge to cross the kitchen in three strides and tug the robe open.  
  
Draco sighs. “He has the flat below mine. Seems pleasant enough, but he has an enormous amount of friends who seem to jab randomly at the buttons and hope someone lets them in.”  
  
“Do you let them in?”  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
Harry smiles. “I think you tell them off and then let them in.”  
  
Draco’s mouth twitches reluctantly and he turns to attend to the kettle. “I take it you couldn’t sleep, either.”  
  
“I think I got a weird couple of hours in the bath,” Harry admits, poking at Draco’s quarry tiles with the tip of his umbrella. “Not sure if that counts.”  
  
Draco turns, one eyebrow flickering. “I don’t want to talk about it, you know.”  
  
“You don’t want to talk about my bath, or me being in it?” Harry asks.  
  
“I don’t want to talk about whiffles, or Seddon, or Carney, or any of it,” Draco says, scowling.  
  
“Okay,” Harry says, and then his eyes are caught by the books on the kitchen table:  _‘The Art of Persuasive Speaking’_ ,  _‘Ministry Secrets Unravelled’_  and a notepad full of writing so chaotic that it is almost unrecognisable as Draco’s. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes,” Draco says, voice a little too loud. He takes his wand from the counter and slashes it at the books, sending them crashing to the floor in a heap. “I don’t even want to think about it.”  
  
The sudden action seems to shake Harry free of his hesitation and he is crossing the room and reaching for Draco before he has the chance to doubt himself.  
  
“Let’s not,” he says, giving in and tugging Draco’s robe open. “Let’s not talk about it or think about it.”  
  
“Okay,” Draco agrees, grabbing Harry’s lapels and pulling him into a kiss that turns breathless and desperate within seconds.  
  
Mouths sliding and tongues brushing, they press tightly against the counter, Draco’s fingers making short work of Harry’s coat and pulling at his jumper until they fall together, chest to chest and bare skin electrified everywhere they touch. Draco’s hardness pushes against Harry’s hip, making him shudder and leak against the rough fabric of his jeans. Breath catching, Draco kisses Harry harder and yanks down his zip, grinning against his mouth when he slips his hands inside to find that Harry hasn’t bothered with underwear.  
  
“In a hurry, were you?” he mumbles, pressing his palm against Harry’s cock and making him groan.  
  
“No talking, remember?” Harry says breathlessly, and Draco laughs.  
  
“Fuck you,” he mumbles, and the heat in his eyes makes Harry’s knees turn weak underneath him.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Maybe later,” Draco says, and then kisses him hard, hands sliding down Harry’s back and gripping his buttocks almost hard enough to hurt.  
  
“Oh, god,” Harry whispers, kicking away his jeans and wrapping his hands around Draco’s hips.  
  
Everything suddenly feels new and pin-sharp; the soft light of the kitchen lamps, the drifting scent of steeping tea and the cold tiles beneath his feet feel almost unreal now that Draco is kissing him with a new, heated intent and their bare cocks are sliding together with perfect, unbearable friction. His heart is hammering in his chest and his breathing seems tied to Draco’s, every shallow, shivering breath in and out pushing him closer to madness.  
  
“Come here,” Draco whispers, breath hot against Harry’s ear, and he pulls away, but his fingers wrap around Harry’s wrist and he follows, as if there is anything else he can do.  
  
Draco sits on the edge of the kitchen table and drags Harry tight between his legs. They both groan at the contact and when Draco mumbles something and holds out his hand, Harry barely notices. Taking both of their cocks in one hand, he strokes them together, startling when something crashes and clatters in the next room and suppressing a whimper when Draco’s hand wraps around his, warm and slippery with something that smells like clean spices.  
  
Harry looks up and meets his eyes, just as Draco guides his hand lower and urges two of Harry’s fingers inside him. He gasps at the sensation and Draco’s eyes darken and flutter closed. He leans back, one hand braced on the table and the other still slowly stroking their cocks together. Harry stretches him open slowly, eyes drawn from the pale, exposed throat to the faded Mark smeared shiny with salve and the desperate arch of Draco’s back.  
  
Hard, flushed and aching, they slide together until Harry is sticky and ready to come all over himself. Seeming to sense his urgency, Draco opens his eyes and withdraws his hand, now resting his weight on both and drawing his legs up onto the table, gazing up at Harry and demanding him without a word. Harry licks his dry bottom lip and nods, barely breathing as he pushes into Draco and holds himself there, fingers gripping his hips as the room seems to swim around him.  
  
Draco stares at him, lip caught in his teeth and neglected cock leaking against his belly. Slowly, Harry pulls back and then slides deep, surprising a gasp out of both of them. Grasping at the edge of the table, Harry pushes into him again and again, trying and failing to keep a rhythm as his hips twitch and his heart speeds out of control.  
  
“Yes,” Draco whispers, pushing back against every stroke.  
  
He reaches for his cock with trembling fingers, letting it slide in and out of his fist as Harry thrusts inside him. Harry can’t look away, and when Draco tenses and spills over his fingers, he comes hard and fast, losing himself inside Draco with a low, shuddering groan.  
  
Feeling unsteady, he leans on his hands, aware of nothing much beyond the grain of the wood against his skin and the rough sound of Draco’s breathing.  
  
“I can safely say that took my mind off things for a little while,” Draco says, reaching up and combing Harry’s hair out of his eyes with his fingers.  
  
“A little while?” Harry laughs, attempting an offended expression.  
  
“You know what I mean. What time did you ask Rosanna to come over?”  
  
Harry grimaces. “Please don’t talk about Rosanna while I’m still…” He sighs, separates himself from Draco and sits on the edge of the table. “Eight o’clock.”  
  
Draco looks at the kitchen clock. “Well, you should be glad I asked, then. It’s quarter to now.”  
  
Harry groans. “Separate showers, then?”  
  
“My shower is very large,” Draco says helpfully, getting to his feet and wandering out of the kitchen completely naked.  
  
**~*~**  
  
They are only a little late for Rosanna, who takes one look at their wet hair and laughs herself silly.  
  
“I should have known,” she says, following them into the café and then looking around with a gratifying level of wonder. “My god, is this the same place?”  
  
Harry and Draco exchange pleased little glances.  
  
“It’s had a little makeover,” Draco says, offering her a seat at one of the new tables.  
  
Rosanna beams. “Q, it looks brilliant! And here they are,” she says, pointing to where the whiffles are pouring out of the newly-plastered wall. “You haven’t had any problems with them, have you?”  
  
“ _We_  haven’t,” Harry says. “I wish I could say the same for this Carney character.”  
  
“Carney?” Rosanna repeats, wide-eyed.  
  
“Yes, do you know him?” Draco asks.  
  
Rosanna shrugs. “I used to know someone with that name but it’s hardly going to be the same person. Did you manage to speak to someone at the Ministry?”  
  
“I tried, but Seddon was very conveniently busy, the Minister is in France and everyone in Samreen’s department is on their Christmas away day,” Harry says. “We haven’t received Carney’s notice in writing yet, so—”  
  
“We have, I’m afraid,” Draco says, holding up a letter. “I just found this on the doormat. He could turn up at any time.”  
  
Harry glances out of the window as though Carney might just materialise out of the snow.  
  
“Okay,” Rosanna says, taking off her coat and smiling to herself when several whiffles bounce onto the table to examine her. “The first thing you need to remember is that you have the upper hand here. It might not seem like it, but you do—this is your property and these animals are being properly taken care of. I can and will attest to that. This Seddon person is reaching and we all know it.”  
  
“I want to believe that,” Draco says, taking the seat next to Harry. “But what if he tries to take them away?”  
  
Harry doesn’t hear the first part of Rosanna’s response because he is watching the group of whiffles currently gathered around the steam machine. He is pretty sure that they are attempting to turn it on, and though so far they only seem to have succeeded in moving it around the floor, he has absolute faith that they will figure it out.  
  
“… so, I’ve made a few notes that we can go through before he turns up,” Rosanna is saying when he turns back to the table, and he forces himself to pay attention.  
  
By ten o’clock, the table is full of whiffles and empty mugs, and both Harry and Draco have received a comprehensive briefing on everything Carney is likely to try when he arrives.  
  
“Remember,” she says, “stay firm but calm. These investigator types like it when people get hysterical. It makes their job easier for them, and we’re not going to do that.”  
  
Harry has no intention of becoming hysterical, but when he spots Carney on the approach, he can feel his pulse rising and it just makes him angrier. The whiffles, who have now successfully worked out how to activate the steam machine, are shepherded into the kitchen by Draco while Harry answers the door and Rosanna waits by the stairs, arms folded and usually-cheery face a stony mask.  
  
“Good morning, Mr Carney,” Harry says politely, pleased when the man’s face flickers with surprise. “Did you have a pleasant journey?”  
  
“Er, yes, thank you,” Carney says, stepping into the café when invited and taking off his hat. “You have received the written notice you requested?”  
  
Draco shows him the folded letter without a word.  
  
Carney seems to flounder for a moment and then gathers himself, setting down his briefcase and taking out his wand, notebook and quill.  
  
“If you would all like to step aside, I would like to cast several charms for our protection,” he says, and Rosanna laughs.  
  
Carney turns abruptly, wand held out. When he meets Rosanna’s eyes, they both startle.  
  
“Eldritch?” she whispers. “It actually is you?”  
  
“Rosanna,” Carney says, shaking his head. “You look… goodness.”  
  
Rosanna laughs again and the sound seems to vibrate through the entire room. “If by ‘goodness’ you mean that I don’t have a pudding basin haircut or mismatching shoes any more, then yes, I suppose I do.”  
  
“You two know each other?” Harry asks.  
  
“We were at Hogwarts together,” Rosanna says. “Eldritch here used to tease me and my friends for being… what was it? ‘Nature freak Hufflepuffs’?”  
  
Carney pales. “Well… I very much… that was a long time ago, nevertheless, I apologise. However, I am here to inspect this magical creature and I will not be distracted.”  
  
“I wasn’t trying to distract you,” Rosanna says, rolling her eyes. “I laughed because you started talking about protective spells. Have you any idea what you’ve been sent to look at?”  
  
Carney’s face hardens. “My client does not have that information, which is why it is so important to use the proper protective spells. We have no idea how dangerous this creature might turn out to be.”  
  
“Have you lost your mind?” Draco asks, and though the words are clearly confrontational, his tone is so carefully calm that Harry wants to laugh.  
  
Instead, he says, “Your client is lying to you. She has a full set of reports about the creatures at this address… written by me.”  
  
Carney bristles. “That is a very serious allegation.”  
  
Rosanna sighs. “Just let Eldritch see them,” she says. “If he’s learned to think for himself since school, he might just see sense.”  
  
Draco reaches for the kitchen door handle and Carney scrambles to cast a series of complex, pearlescent spells that form a pulsating barrier between all of them and the kitchen door. Without a word, Draco opens the door and whiffles spill out into the dining room in waves. They notice Carney at once, and before five seconds have passed, every oculus in the place has popped out and every spherical eye has been trained on the bewildered stranger. When no one moves, the front row of whiffles begin to push against Carney’s magic, crackling in confusion when they are repelled and forced to bounce back against the row behind them. The action causes a ripple effect that makes Harry want to laugh, but he bites his lip and stands as still as he can.  
  
Carney stares for a long time and then turns to face Harry. “These are the creatures?”  
  
Harry just nods.  
  
“All of them?”  
  
“Give or take. There might be a few more hiding in the walls, but they all look exactly like that.”  
  
“My information was that you were harbouring a dangerous creature here,” he says, dark eyes darting from the whiffles to Draco, Rosanna, and back to Harry. “These are whiffles.”  
  
“We did try to tell you,” Harry says, tentative hope rising in his chest.  
  
Carney picks up his briefcase and shuffles through a stack of paperwork, frowning and muttering to himself.  
  
“Dangerous,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Unknown and likely harmful to Muggles.”  
  
“Yes, terribly harmful,” Draco says drily, and there’s a thunk-hiss as a crack team of whiffles once again manages to turn on the steam machine.  
  
“These are Scandinavian whiffles,” Carney says, abandoning his notes and crouching on the floor to peer at them. “Where on earth did they come from?”  
  
“Scandinavia, I imagine,” Draco says.  
  
“We think they—or at least one of them—came over by accident with one of the former owners of the property,” Harry says, starting to feel just a little bit sorry for Carney.  
  
“They look healthy,” he says, grabbing his wand. He takes down the protective spells and inspects the steam machine. “Where did you get this device?”  
  
“Draco made it,” Harry says proudly.  
  
Carney looks up at Draco, clearly impressed. The whiffles, now free of the magical barrier, crowd around him with eyes whirring. Carney gazes down at them, something very much like pleasure lighting his serious face.  
  
“I never thought I’d see these in the flesh. Wonderful, aren’t they?”  
  
Rosanna folds her arms. “I thought they were terribly dangerous.”  
  
Carney stands up slowly. “It appears that I have been misinformed.”  
  
_No shit_ , Harry thinks mutinously, but he keeps his neutral expression in place.  
  
“What did she tell you?” Draco asks. “The truth, please. I think we deserve that much after this fiasco.”  
  
Carney sighs. “I was told that there was a potentially very dangerous creature living here and that it needed to be assessed… and potentially destroyed.” He glances at Harry and Draco in turn. “I was also told that the two of you were likely to be obstructive and uncooperative.”  
  
“I can’t believe her,” Harry says, horrified.  
  
“I can,” Draco mutters.  
  
“So, Eldritch,” Rosanna says, coming to stand right in front of him. He is at least a foot taller than her but he seems to shrink under her stern gaze. “What do you think your report is going to say?”  
  
“Well,” he says slowly, “I’ll still want to check their environment and care standards, but I think that’s going to be a formality in this case. There is clearly nothing dangerous here, and my report will reflect that.”  
  
Harry glances at Draco who is looking not at Carney but at the whiffles, expression one of quiet, protective pride. Feeling warm all over, Harry smiles at him through the haze of steam.  
  
“Please accept my apologies,” Carney says at the door several minutes later. “I don’t like to frighten people but often it’s the only way I can do my job. I suspect I’ll be more careful in future.”  
  
Harry is surprised to be offered a handshake but he grips Carney’s cold fingers in his and manages to find a smile for a man who might just have a heart after all. Draco shakes, too, and then, to their surprise, so does Rosanna, who has gathered her things and struggled back into her coat.  
  
“Come on, Eldritch,” she says, propelling him out onto the street. “I’m starving. Why don’t you buy me breakfast at this little place down here and we can catch up?”  
  
“Er… alright,” Carney says, clearly taken aback.  
  
Harry watches them walk in the direction of the Breakfast Barrel, Rosanna talking and waving her hands while Carney peers down at her, puzzled and pleased at the same time. When he turns around, Draco has disappeared, but he soon returns with tea and more illicit baking samples.  
  
“Shall we try this again?” he suggests, curling up on the red sofa and motioning for Harry to join him.  
  
Harry flops beside him, weary but exhilarated, taking his cup and resting his head on Draco’s shoulder. The snow falls gently outside the window, bathing them in white light and smothering the sounds of the world outside the café. There is much still to do, but for now, the only thing that matters is that their pointy, crackly friends are no longer at risk.  
  
The whiffles are safe.


	24. Chapter Twenty-four

**Twenty-fourth of December**  – a bowler hat  
  
  
  
“Draco… Malfois?” the postman attempts, peering at the package in his hands and then at Harry, who is standing in the doorway of Garrett’s and watching Joe fix their brand new sign to the shopfront.  
  
“Close enough,” Harry laughs.  
  
He takes the package carefully, noting the word ‘fragile’ stamped all over the box. The postman waves to Joe and moves along to Gladys’s house with an impressive stack of letters.  
  
“Quite a name, that,” Joe says, grinning down at Harry from his ladder. “Sounds like he belongs on the stage.”  
  
“Sometimes I think he does,” Harry agrees.  
  
He weighs the box in his hands, watching Draco through the window and wondering if he should ask why he is sitting on the floor, peering through his eyeglass at the whiffles and allowing them to swarm around a plate of neat little triangular sandwiches on his lap. The sandwiches in question belong to an enormous batch that has taken most of the morning to make, but Harry decides to let the experiment, whatever it is, run its course.  
  
Instead, he watches Joe’s colourful hair bobbing in the wind, admiring his balance and sure hands, and, when he climbs down from the ladder, standing back with him to admire his work. The new sign simply reads ‘Garrett’s’ and is a study in simple elegance. The background perfectly matches the new rich dark blue of the shopfront and the letters are picked out in clean, white text that manages to look perfect and charmingly rustic at the same time. Joe has added subtle red highlights that seem to bring the whole thing to life and a layer of tough varnish that he promises will protect the sign from the harshest of Blackwell’s changeable weather.  
  
“That looks seriously professional,” Harry says, grinning. “How much do I owe you?”  
  
“Don’t even think about it,” Joe says firmly. “The materials were yours, and to be honest, I had a great time doing it. Whatever you were going to give me, you can stick in the charity box at the library. We’re collecting for Macmillan nurses this month.”  
  
“Okay,” Harry concedes. “I can’t really argue with that. Thank you very much.”  
  
“Have you finished?” Draco asks, poking his head around the door.  
  
Joe looks at his eyeglass and laughs. “All done, professor. Come and have a look.”  
  
While Draco admires the finished shopfront, Harry retreats inside. The snow has stopped falling, at least for the moment, but glistening white powder still covers the shops and houses and the wind that rips through the town is remorseless. He makes two cups of tea, wandering around the kitchen as it brews and taking proud inventory of the cakes, biscuits, sandwiches and pies sitting in stacks on every available surface. Beside a long line of coloured boxes containing tea of all varieties, a tin of freshly ground coffee and one of Gladys’s secret hot chocolate powder wait for their moments, and the new plates and cups are gleaming and ready for use.  
  
Everything is poised, organised to within an inch of its life, and all that’s left to do is wait. In less than an hour’s time, at two o’clock, the doors of Garrett’s will open to the population of Blackwell-in-the-Fold for the first time in decades, and the thought of it makes Harry’s pulse race with thrilling, terrifying anticipation. He has no idea when he last felt so genuinely excited. All the Auror raids in the world crumble into monotony next to this jittery, off-balance pride that only spirals higher when Draco walks into the kitchen and catches him admiring the neatly placed cherries on a tray of bakewell tarts.  
  
“Where did this come from?” he asks, holding up the paper-wrapped box.  
  
“The postman brought it.”  
  
Draco frowns, touching the postmark with his fingertips and then unwrapping the package carefully. He withdraws a card containing a photograph of a lavish hotel surrounded by fountains, reads it, takes a deep breath and reads it again. Finally, he sets it down and unpacks a shiny object, holding it in his hands and staring at it in bewilderment.  
  
“It’s a teapot,” Harry says, when the object is turned towards him.  
  
“Apparently.”  
  
Harry laughs softly. The teapot is small, perhaps only large enough for two delicate cups, and is almost entirely cube-shaped, painted in glossy red with an instantly recognisable configuration of white spots.  
  
“It’s a dice,” he says, and then frowns. “Or a die. I always get it wrong.”  
  
Draco just shrugs, sliding the card to him across the counter. Harry picks it up.  
  
_Dear Draco,_  
  
_Your father and I have arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada. The weather is very warm here and the hotels are very impressive. I found this in the Bellagio gift shop and thought it might entertain you. You can use it in your tea shop or add it to your collection. Everyone here enjoys gambling very much! The man in the gift shop says he will wrap up the teapot and ‘add it to their outgoing mail’, which is rather exciting but I am not sure when it will reach you. I hope in time for Christmas._  
  
_Your father is in the hotel bar, drinking away his sorrows. He has lost one thousand American Dollars at the blackjack table, which has made him very cross because he had invented a ‘system’ and it failed to work the way he had hoped. There is a saying here – ‘the house always wins’. I imagine he will, at some point, realise that this applies to him as well as everyone else._  
  
_I hope you and Harry are well. Perhaps we will see you for Christmas next year._  
  
_Love,_  
  
_Mother._  
  
Harry looks up from the card to find that he is alone in the kitchen, save for a small group of whiffles bouncing around in the steam from the kettle. In the dining room, Draco is rearranging teapots and trinkets to find a space for his mother’s gift. Finally, he sets it in the centre of the longest shelf, between a painted tin jug and a set of books about Finnish wildlife.  
  
“She sent you a teapot,” Harry says, unable to find the proper words to express the sweet sort of sadness that has taken up residence in his chest.  
  
Draco turns, and his determined smile wrenches Harry’s heart.  
  
“My father is an idiot,” he says, and then wraps his arms around Harry, pressing his face into Harry’s neck and letting out his breath in long, careful streams.  
  
“Yeah, he is,” Harry agrees, holding him tight and gazing at the teapot over his shoulder.  
  
He can’t fix Lucius Malfoy and he knows there is no use trying, but he can love Draco twice as much to make up for it. Slipping his fingers into soft, pale hair, he buries his sigh in Draco’s shoulder and reaches for the fortitude that will carry both of them through the rest of the day.  
  
“It’s nearly time,” he says. “Are you ready to kick some Scandinavian-themed ass?”  
  
Draco pulls back, laughing despite the horrified look on his face. “There is something wrong with you.”  
  
“Yes,” Harry says gravely. “But it’s too late for you now.”  
  
Draco shakes his head and stalks into the kitchen, closely followed by Murdoch, who has just emerged from a long sleep and is, no doubt, in search of a snack.  
  
“You have to behave yourself when the people come,” Harry calls after him.  
  
“I won’t,” Draco calls back. He turns on the steam machine and all the whiffles flock to the kitchen, leaving the dining room empty and almost silent.  
  
When the pointy masses have been shut away, the blind has been removed from the window and the sign on the door flipped to ‘open’, they wait, hovering by the door and swapping anxious glances. Occasionally, Harry catches Draco looking over at his apron, noting that the sight of the embroidered silvery ‘HARRY’ on the forest green fabric seems to amuse him. He doesn’t mind; in fact, he feels rather smart in his new uniform, and far more comfortable than he ever had in Auror robes.  
  
At one minute past two, Gladys arrives with Bob. They take a seat near the fireplace and make a show of looking through the menu, even though Gladys knows exactly what is on offer, and if she hasn’t already told Bob everything they’ve made at least three times over, Harry will eat the Christmas anaconda. Five minutes later, Hermione, Hugo and Rose pile through the door, looking around and making wonderfully encouraging noises about the décor. The children dash from blackboard to blackboard, reading Harry’s messages and quickly finding the one with their names on it.  
  
“That’s us!” Rose cries, turning in her chair to beam at the nearest person.  
  
“Is that right?” Gladys says. “I suppose you’re a businesswoman now, then.”  
  
“I’m a businesswoman, too!” Hugo declares, not wanting to miss out.  
  
“Of course you are,” Gladys says. She turns to Hermione. “You must be their mother. What lovely children.”  
  
Hermione beams, and Gladys turns to Harry, mouthing ‘magic?’ and jerking her head in Hermione’s direction. Harry nods and Gladys looks rather pleased with herself.  
  
“Ron says he’ll pop in later, and you should probably expect all sorts of other Weasleys,” Hermione says, taking off her coat and studying the menu. “Wow, look at all this cake.”  
  
“Get it while it lasts,” Harry teases, and then the door opens again, this time admitting six parents with various children, some of whom he recognises from Mr Bobble at the library, and all of whom are apparently ravenous, grabbing up the menus and putting in their orders before Gladys and Bob have decided what sort of tea to have.  
  
Draco disappears into the kitchen as planned, leaving Harry to write down orders and bring out trays of cakes and sandwiches and hot drinks. It soon becomes apparent that the school fete is winding down as parents with small children start to arrive, first in a trickle and then a stream, packing out every table and filling the dining room with fragrant steam and excitable conversation. Rose’s new friend from the library is among them, and he runs to her immediately, showing off the inexplicable shiny toy he has won on the tombola and beseeching his father to choose the table beside hers.  
  
In the kitchen, Draco makes drinks and assembles orders with a systematic calm that Harry can only envy. With two kettles and a steam machine belching out hot water vapour, he is warm and his hair is forming chaotic waves over his forehead and neck, but he smiles at Harry every time he hands him another order or arrives to take one away. The whiffles are everywhere, all at once swarming around Draco’s ankles, crackling around the steam machine and nudging plates along the counter in a manic sort of production line.  
  
Murdoch, meanwhile, makes the rounds of the dining room with great self-importance, stopping at each table and allowing adults and children alike to make a fuss of him. Harry suspects that he is also soliciting more than his fair share of treats, but he is far too busy to do anything about it. News of their pet friendly policy has clearly spread, as various animal customers soon make their appearances.  
  
As the family crowd starts to thin towards the middle of the afternoon, many of the local business owners take the opportunity to have tea and cake with their non-human friends. Kaspar the newsagent comes in with a mynah bird on his shoulder that booms ‘you need ID for cigarettes’ at Harry in his owner’s thick eastern European accent. Joe takes a break from the library to sample fruit tea and bakewells with his ferret, Asimov, who walks so nicely on his lead and harness that Molly is completely enchanted and is stroking him in her lap by the time her cakes arrive.  
  
“This is wonderful,” Arthur says, biting into a piece of orange and poppy seed cake. “You’ve done a marvellous job with it all, Harry.”  
  
Harry grins, thanking him and then dashing back into the kitchen at the sound of Draco’s call. Gladys, who had sent Bob home and jumped into service with him the moment their plates had been cleared, gets there first and tells him sternly to take a moment to get his breath back. He hangs back by the stairs, looking over the packed tables, the roaring fire and the colourful mixture of people and pets. The snow is falling again, dappling people’s coats and creating the musty scent of wet fabric that only seems to make the place feel cosier. Several people are examining the Christmas cards tacked to the walls while others dip into the bowl of candy canes Harry has set out in an attempt at reciprocity. Beside it on the counter, Draco’s guestbook is filling up rapidly with the names and addresses of locals who would like to receive news from Garrett’s and their own Christmas card next year.  
  
“Never thought I’d see this place open,” says a woman with two smiling staffies as she hands her money to Gladys and takes a candy cane. “All those stories about spirits and funny goings on… gives me the willies.”  
  
“Not to worry, love, there’s no such things as ghosts, ghouls or monsters,” Gladys says, handing over her change and winking at Harry when the woman turns to pull her dogs away from Joe’s ferret.  
  
“Thank goodness for that,” she laughs, waving to Harry as she is pulled out into the snow.  
  
Ron arrives just as Hermione is hugging Harry goodbye and leaving to free up a table for Mike and his wife.  
  
“Looks great, mate,” he says, genuinely impressed. “I haven’t got long, but I wanted to show my face and… well, to be honest, I really want to see Q cooking.”  
  
Harry snorts. “You’ve missed that bit, I’m afraid. He’s just putting things on plates now.”  
  
Ron sighs and then grins. “Oh, well, I’m still going to have a look.”  
  
“Mind the… never mind,” Harry says, receiving a slap to the shoulder as Ron walks away. Amused, he approaches Mike’s table with his notepad. “Hello, what can I get you?”  
  
“That feels a bit odd, doesn’t it?” Mike says. “It’s usually me asking you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “Listen, I hope you don’t think we’re trying to steal your business.”  
  
Mike’s wife laughs gently. “I told him you were worried about that.”  
  
“Young man, I’ve had that café for nearly twenty years,” Mike says, resting his arm on the back of his chair and gazing up at Harry. “I’d never close it, but a bit of time off is long overdue. We’ve just bought a canal boat, you know.”  
  
“It’ll be nice to have some time to use it,” his wife says with a hopeful smile. “The trouble is, he’d never cut the opening hours if there was nowhere else for people to go. Now they can come to you.”  
  
“Right,” Harry says, surprised. “We’d only planned to open in the afternoons, so…”  
  
“Champion,” Mike says. “We’ll do breakfast and you can do the rest. No one goes hungry and we get to take the barge out whenever we like. Now, is this tea that loose stuff or does it come in proper bags?”  
  
By the time Harry has explained to Mike’s satisfaction that their tea comes in many different types, Ron is heading for the door.  
  
“Got a meeting in about two minutes,” he calls over the rumble of conversation. “Already going to be late, but who calls a meeting on Christmas Eve?”  
  
“Mad people?” Harry suggests, and it’s amazing how much he doesn’t miss the Ministry.  
  
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Hope you’ve got lots of food left—I’ve just seen Ginny and Blaise,” Ron warns him, heading out into the snow with a grin.  
  
Ginny and Blaise arrive two minutes later and settle themselves on the red sofa in the window. They are followed by Serena, who crouches on the floor to wait for a table, fussing Murdoch and covering him in stray glitter from the springy stars attached to her silver hairband. When Brendan arrives wearing a Christmas waistcoat and a bowler hat, she just laughs into Murdoch’s fur.  
  
“What are you wearing?” she asks eventually.  
  
“I’m being festive. What are you wearing?”  
  
Serena frowns and then touches her head, flushing. “Oh. I forgot to take them off.”  
  
“Well, I am keeping Mr Crisp warm,” Brendan says, and before Harry or Serena can ask, he takes off the bowler hat to reveal a tiny shoelace of a snake perching in his hair.  
  
“Is that a snake?” asks the lady from the hardware shop.  
  
Marcia stands up from the seat opposite her and peers at the tiny creature. “Looks like one.”  
  
“Only a little one,” Brendan says, and then turns anxiously to Harry. “You said pets were welcome, didn’t you?”  
  
“If Mr Crisp is going to behave himself, I have no problem with him,” Harry says, smiling when the little snake lifts its head like a periscope and flicks out a tiny forked tongue. “I don’t have a table for you yet, I’m afraid.”  
  
Serena stands up, gazing around at the crowded dining room. “You’re really busy. Do you need a waitress?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Harry says. “We may already have one.”  
  
Gladys bustles out of the kitchen with a tray full of tea things. Serena nods, crestfallen.  
  
“You could come and work at the library with me,” Brendan suggests, and she brightens.  
  
“Maybe. Can I hold Mr Crisp?”  
  
Brendan lifts the little snake and lets Serena take him. “Have the ghosts left, then?” he asks with a grin.  
  
“No,” Harry says. “We just put them to work in the kitchen.”  
  
Brendan glances at the closed door and laughs, then looks at Serena, who is holding Mr Crisp gently in one hand and stroking Murdoch’s head with the other.  
  
Harry turns his attention to Ginny and Blaise, surprised to see that they have already received their food and drinks. Resolving to up his efficiency, he winds his way over to their table to say hello and make sure everything is to their satisfaction.  
  
“No, Blaise, I can’t have raw eggs,” she says, and he stops.  
  
“I’m sorry, Gin, I keep forgetting,” Blaise says. “Perhaps we should make a list of all the things you mustn’t eat, and then when the time comes, you can celebrate by eating them all.”  
  
Ginny laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear and catching Harry’s eyes. He arches an eyebrow and she smiles and ducks her head.  
  
“Tomorrow?” he mouths, and she nods.  
  
He grins, prickling with excitement. When he turns around, Draco is standing behind him, dishevelled and confused.  
  
“What was that about?”  
  
Harry ushers him back into the kitchen, quickly dissolving some of the oppressive humidity with his wand. Draco leans against the counter, visibly relieved.  
  
“I was ready to go and stand in the snow,” he sighs. “What’s the matter with Ginny?”  
  
“She couldn’t share Blaise’s sandwich because it had mayonnaise on it,” Harry explains, still grinning.  
  
Draco frowns. “Is that all? We have plenty of bread left, I can make her another one.”  
  
“No, she can’t because… well, I think she’s pregnant,” Harry says, and Draco’s eyes go wide.  
  
“Good grief… Blaise is going to be a father,” he says. He shakes his head and then laughs. “I can’t quite imagine it, and yet at the same time…”  
  
“It’s sort of fantastic?” Harry suggests.  
  
“Yeah. I’ve missed him, you know. It was my fault that we lost touch for so long,” Draco says, folding his arms across his crumb-strewn shirt. “I had this brilliant idea that I didn’t need anyone and just stopped responding to his owls. Do you think he’ll have me back?”  
  
“Yes,” Harry says without hesitation. “I think you just need to say the word and he’ll be all ‘don’t even give it a moment’s thought, old bean!’”  
  
Draco snorts. “That was a little bit disturbing.”  
  
The kitchen door swings open and Gladys eyes them with exasperation. “I don’t know what you two are up to, but a great load of builders just came in. I don’t think you should make them wait after all that work they did for you.”  
  
“Gladys, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Draco says gravely. “They can have whatever they want and don’t let them pay for it.”  
  
Gladys walks back into the dining room without a word and Harry follows, sketching a little salute.  
  
“Why on earth would I want that knife?” Draco says, just as the door swings closed. “We’re going to have a talk about proper kitchen procedure when this is all over.”  
  
With that wonderful image in mind, Harry takes out his notebook and finds Craig and his colleagues gathered around a table by the window. Behind them, snowflakes whirl past the glass and the family that has just vacated their table walks through the drifts, the two parents holding the hands of the little girl between them and swinging her through the air. Murdoch trundles out from underneath a nearby table with a small shoe in his mouth. Seconds later, a child pelts after him, giggling and attempting to reclaim her property. Harry sighs.  
  
“Is this place any good?” Craig asks, and they grin at each other. “I heard it was haunted.”  
  
“Order something and find out,” Harry suggests. “If it’s terrible, tell all your friends and ruin us.”  
  
“Sounds reasonable,” Craig says. He scans the menu. “Let’s start with some tea.”


	25. Chapter Twenty-five

**Twenty-fifth of December – candles**

Harry opens his eyes and smiles. His bedroom is full of bright winter sunlight and the air is cold enough to chill his face, but the rest of him is toasty beneath the quilts and blankets, and someone is skating their fingers down his side in a way that pulls his aching muscles tight.

 

“Good morning,” he murmurs, stretching and shivering when Draco’s hand slips lower and brushes against his morning hardness. Instinctively, he looks around for Murdoch, and Draco laughs softly into his neck.

 

“I took him downstairs and fed him. By the look on his face, I suspect I gave him too much.”

 

“How to win friends and influence Labradors,” Harry laughs, turning his head for a lazy kiss.

 

“Murder Face and I are already friends,” Draco tells him.

 

He presses himself along Harry’s back, hot and hard, one hand wrapped around Harry’s cock and the other propping him up in the pillows. Harry groans and closes his eyes, thrilled by the casual ease of it all and the anticipation that shocks him with every touch of Draco’s fingers. It’s Christmas morning; most of the residents of Grimmauld Place are drinking their coffee and tearing the shiny paper from their presents, and he is lying here, dying to be fucked by a beautiful mad scientist.

 

Harry grins against his pillow. It feels pretty fucking brilliant, too.

 

Draco pauses in his stroking to wave his hand at the door, and before Harry has time to protest, something is whipping through the air and the stroking resumes, now slick and warm and wonderful.

 

“Fuck,” he whispers, pushing into Draco’s touch. “Where did you learn to do wandless magic?”

 

“Do you really want to get into that right now?” Draco asks, kissing his shoulder and biting just hard enough to make Harry gasp.

 

“Sorry,” he manages, guilt mixing with pleasure and throwing him off balance. “I should have guessed it was to do with your father.”

 

“It was nothing to do with my father, but let’s keep him out of the bedroom, shall we?” Draco says, releasing Harry’s cock and slowly, slowly, sliding a slicked finger inside him.

 

“Oh,” Harry whispers, arching back into the touch and then frowning. “What was it, then?”

 

“You won’t like it,” Draco says, fingers twisting inside him and making him cry out.

 

“Draco, for god’s sake,” Harry pants, turning his head and catching a glimpse of amused grey eyes.

 

“Alright,” he relents, breath warm against Harry’s ear. “I’ve always been able to do it.”

 

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’re unbelievable,” Harry mutters, and he’s not sure if he means it as a compliment or not, but when Draco slides his fingers in just the right way and he feels as though he’s about to come apart, he decides that it doesn’t really matter.

 

“Is that an invitation?” Draco asks, and he almost sounds nervous.

 

“Yes,” Harry says, palming his cock against his belly and closing his eyes. “Yes, please.”

 

Draco eases inside him, breathing ragged and fingers tight at Harry’s hip. They exhale slowly as one, adjusting to the sensation and then start to move, rocking gently together under the weight of winter quilts and settling into a lazy, unhurried rhythm. Harry follows the movement of Draco’s hips, helping him to slide his cock deeper and then fall away, leaving them both wanting more but unwilling to rush for it. He turns his head, catching Draco’s mouth in messy, breathless kisses, lacing their fingers together and pressing his aching cock against his stomach, each rock of their hips providing just enough friction to make him whimper.

 

“I want to see you,” Draco whispers, eyes burning into Harry’s.

 

“You can see me,” Harry whispers back, confused, and then he understands, and he is on fire. “Oh. I’m close.”

 

Draco smiles against his shoulder and pulls him in tight, stroking into him and gazing hungrily down at the tangle of their fingers around Harry’s cock. It isn’t long before he shudders and comes, spilling his release over their hands with a cry and watching with Draco as his cock jerks and leaks.

 

“That was… that was so…” Draco attempts, but his words are buried in Harry’s shoulder as he pushes into him in shuddering strokes and loses himself deep inside Harry.

 

“It was,” Harry agrees, using the last of his energy to fling back the covers and allow the cold air to rush against his skin. He smiles. “You have a thing.”

 

Draco props himself up on his elbow and arches an eyebrow. If he didn’t know better, Harry would say that he wasn’t embarrassed at all, but he does know better, and it’s glorious.

 

“If liking to watch you come is a ‘thing’, I suppose I’m guilty,” he says evenly.

 

“I liked it,” Harry says, pulling him down into a kiss that nearly starts the entire thing again.

 

Breathless and tingling all over, he looks at his alarm clock.

 

“Don’t do that,” Draco says, flicking a wandless spell that makes the clock tip over onto its face.

 

“Don’t do _that_ ,” Harry counters. “I’ve only just had it fixed. What else can you do?”

 

“Just little things,” Draco shrugs. “Locking spells, small object levitation, summoning. I once changed the colour of your trousers, but that was a very slow day.”

 

“I remember that! I thought I’d gone mad,” Harry says. “Why did you keep it a secret?”

 

“I didn’t want you to think I was showing off,” Draco says, and Harry laughs.

 

He laughs all the way to the shower, finally stops, and then remembers again as he’s towelling his hair and snort-giggles all the way back to the bedroom.

 

“You can go and fuck yourself,” Draco says calmly, stepping away from Harry’s shelves, where he has apparently been examining his collection of photographs.

 

“There definitely isn’t time for that,” Harry says, calling after him when he stalks off to the bathroom. “It’s already eleven o’clock and we do not mess with Molly on Christmas day.”

 

When there is no response, Harry just continues scrubbing at his damp hair and gazes idly at the items on his shelves. In the bathroom, the shower hisses and the screen door slides and clicks shut as Draco steps inside. For a moment, Harry frowns, trying to work out exactly what is catching his eye, and then he sees it. The photograph of his parents in the wooden frame made by Teddy is back in its proper place. He picks it up, running his fingers over the grain of the wood and searching for the broken edges, but the frame is completely intact. Biting down on a smile, he replaces the picture and walks out into the hallway.

 

“Draco, did you mend my picture?” he calls.

 

There is a pause and a splash and then: “Of course not!”

 

Harry steps into the bathroom and looks through the glass, admiring the way the water travels over Draco’s slender frame and darkens his pale hair.

 

“I love you,” he says, and when Draco turns to meet his eyes, the sharp warmth that floods through him is almost overwhelming.

 

“I love you, too,” he says, fingertips pressing against the glass. “What’s the latest we can risk getting to the Burrow?”

 

Harry hesitates only for a moment before abandoning his towel and getting back into the shower.

 

**~*~**

 

They arrive just on time, and their not-quite lateness almost goes unnoticed as Molly hurries around the kitchen and frets about the absence of Blaise and Ginny. It’s a smaller family Christmas this year, with Charlie and Bill working abroad and Percy and his family visiting the in-laws in Scotland, but the turkey is still enormous, and Harry suspects that they will all be eating leftovers for at least a week. Arthur has, with a lot of nagging from Molly, been dissuaded from his deep frying experiment, but has managed to take responsibility for the Christmas pudding, as well as all the drinks and nibbles for the day.

 

Molly is happy that her bird, gravy and vegetables remain un-interfered with, while Arthur seems to be having a wonderful time in the corner of the kitchen with a whole host of intriguing ingredients. To no one’s surprise, Draco is immediately dragged over to help, and Harry, knowing he is lost at least until they sit down to eat, pulls up a chair next to Hermione.

 

“I think she’s going to send out a search party if they’re not here soon,” she says, and Harry follows her eyes to where Molly is violently mashing potatoes and peering out of the window.

 

“Maybe one of them isn’t feeling well,” Harry says without thinking, and Hermione’s eyes snap to his.

 

“Do you know something?”

 

“Do you?”

 

“I do now,” Hermione says, smiling to herself. “I had wondered. She’d been so hungry and then when I saw her the other day, she wouldn’t eat a thing.”

 

“I hope she’s not throwing up,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose.

 

“She probably is,” Hermione says, shrugging. “I was really sick with both of mine.”

 

“What are you really sick of, my favourite wife?” Ron demands, sliding into a chair with a slightly lopsided smile.

 

“Nothing,” she lies. “What have you had?”

 

“Dad’s made sherry custard shots,” Ron says grandly. “They’re like a hot trifle in a glass. Brilliant.”

 

“And how many have you had?” Harry asks.

 

Ron blinks, surprised. “One.”

 

“I’ll have one, Dad,” George says, appearing in this year’s bright yellow Christmas jumper and skidding across the kitchen floor in his socks.

 

Arthur passes a steaming little glass to his son and beams as he swallows it in one. “Harry? Hermione?” he offers, while Draco looks on with a mixture of intrigue and horror.

 

“Maybe later,” Harry says, and Arthur turns back to his dessert experiment.

 

“Grandma, they’re here!” Rose calls from the back door.

 

Murdoch leaps up from his sprawl at Harry’s feet and dashes to greet the late arrivals with more enthusiasm than coordination. Molly lets out a long, relieved exhalation and hurries to greet her missing daughter and son-in-law, barely seeming to notice that the daft dog is chewing on the bottom of her apron.

 

“Why didn’t you use the fireplace?” she demands, hugging them both and brushing snow from their coats. “It’s two feet deep out there, no wonder you’re late.”

 

“Sorry, Mum,” Ginny says, and she and Blaise exchange glances. “I was going to wait another week to tell you all, but Harry knows and I’m pretty sure Hermione does too… Blaise and I are having a baby. I can’t Floo because it makes me feel sick.”

 

Harry and Hermione grin at each other, allowing the proud grandparents to hug Ginny and Blaise before getting up and adding their own congratulations.

 

“I’m so pleased for you,” Harry whispers into Ginny’s hair, wrapping his arms around her and feeling her excited smile against his cheek. “You’re going to be an amazing mum.”

 

Ginny sniffles and hugs him back tightly, and all he feels is pure delight. Just weeks ago, he would have meant his words just the same, but they would have been accompanied by a twinge of sadness for his own loneliness. Now all he wants to do is pick Ginny up and swing her around, but if Flooing makes her sick, he’d probably better not. When he releases her, he sees Blaise pulling Draco into one of his massive hugs and laughs at his startled expression.

 

In his excitement, Arthur starts passing out his custard shots to everyone but Ginny and the children, and when he calls a toast to the baby, Harry finds himself contemplating his first alcoholic drink since the night Draco lost his job at the Ministry. One won’t hurt too much, he tells himself, and he joins the toast, tipping the whole thing into his mouth in one. He is surprised to discover that it is actually delicious, hot, sweet custard deftly carrying the festive kick of the sherry and leaving his mouth tingling with Christmas spices.

 

He doesn’t know how Arthur does it, but the drink hits him like a Bludger to the head, and by the time they actually sit down to eat, Harry finds himself concentrating very hard on cutting up his turkey, conveying his carrots to his mouth, and preventing his peas from scattering everywhere. He is, at least, not alone in his squiffiness. Molly, too is listing slightly in her chair, and Draco keeps giggling every time he is asked to pass the gravy, and then looking around as though wondering who has made the sound. Murdoch has managed to position himself on the floor between George and Ron, both of whom have had two of their father’s drinks and are giving in to the daft dog’s hopeful scrounging without argument.

 

Arthur seems entirely unaffected, as does Blaise, and, surprisingly, Hermione. She looks around the table with affectionate exasperation and says nothing when Rose and Hugo make a game of imitating their various family members’ tipsy expressions.

 

“Is everything alright?” Molly asks, peering at the gleaming turkey as though surprised to see it on the table. “No experiments today, that’s what I said. Just proper food.”

 

“It’s lovely,” Harry says, and it really is.

 

Everything tastes absolutely bloody wonderful, succulent and perfectly seasoned and just about the best fucking Christmas dinner he’s ever had.

 

“It’s delicious, Molly,” Hermione says. “Though I think we can agree that the custard was a bit of an experiment.”

 

“A triumph,” Arthur agrees, beaming around at his family. “You can have one next year, Ginny, and you two… well, you can have one when you’re a lot older.”

 

“You’re silly, Grandad,” Hugo says, spearing a chipolata on his fork.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with being silly,” George says. “I have quite literally made a career of it.”

 

Ron laughs and drops a piece of turkey. Murdoch chomps it noisily under the table.

 

“Careers are important,” Molly says suddenly, and everyone turns to her. Her face is flushed and her eyes seem to shimmer in the candlelight. “But… happiness is more important.”

 

“Hear, hear,” Blaise calls loudly, and Harry wonders if he’s not quite as sober as he looks.

 

“We were worried about you, Harry,” Molly says, and now everyone is looking at him. “Not any more, though… when we saw you in that café yesterday, we knew—didn’t we, Arthur?”

 

“We did,” Arthur says solemnly.

 

“You weren’t happy at the Ministry, and now you are. And Draco is good for you. And I just want all my children to be happy and content and live good lives.” Molly pauses, looking around the table. “I’m proud of every single one of you.”

 

“God bless us, everyone,” Blaise booms, and everyone but Molly dissolves into giggles.

 

“I’m glad you’re proud of us, Mum, but do you need a hanky?” George offers, producing a piece of spotted fabric from his pocket that flies straight for Molly’s nose, and soon she is laughing, too.

 

“Arthur, what on earth have you done to us?”

 

Arthur scrutinises his empty glass. “On balance, I think it could have done without the powdered firewhisky,” he admits.

 

“I thought it was sherry?” Ginny asks, amused.

 

“Yes, that as well,” Arthur says. “Does anyone want to try my wasabi popcorn?”

 

“What’s the catch?” Ron asks.

 

“No catch,” Arthur promises.

 

Beside him, Draco shakes his head vehemently at Ron.

 

“Maybe later,” Ron says quickly.

 

“No one is eating any wasabi anything until they’ve had their Christmas pudding,” Molly says, and Arthur brightens.

 

“I’ll go and get it.”

 

Following a Christmas pudding that smokes copiously and arranges itself into endless and infuriating shapes on their plates, everyone decamps to the living room, where the furniture is squashy and the enormous Christmas tree dapples the walls with multicoloured light. As the only fully sober adult, Ginny insists on making cups of tea for everyone, distributing them to her family and curling up with Blaise on a creaky old sofa while everyone else slowly comes to their senses.

 

It’s a wonderful feeling of calm that is rarely found in the Weasley household, and Harry relishes it. He leans back in an old armchair while Draco sits at his feet, legs crossed and cup held close to his face. The wireless plays soft carols in the corner, and someone lights incense, filling the room gently with the warm scent of cinnamon. Murdoch, full of food and ready for sleep, stretches out in front of the fire while Hugo plays with his ears and Rose, lifted out of her chair, curls on her father’s lap like a cat.

 

“I know something that’ll make you happy,” Ron says, poking Draco with his foot.

 

“I’m already happy,” Draco says without looking up.

 

“Happier, then,” Ron says, and Harry hides a smile in his cup.

 

Draco relents. “What?”

 

“You know that meeting I had yesterday? Turns out Kingsley’s read those reports, as well as the one from your investigator, Carney, and Seddon has been suspended, pending an inquiry into her conduct,” Ron says.

 

Harry lets out a long breath. “That’s good.”

 

“It’s strange how much I don’t care,” Draco says, expression pensive. “I thought I would, but actually, it doesn’t matter to me any more.”

 

“You’re an odd man, Q,” Ron says, clearly confused.

 

When Harry mouths ‘thank you’ to him, he just shrugs.

 

“You did a good thing, mate. It might not matter to you any more, but there are a lot of people who are going to be happier if she never comes back.”

 

Draco rests against Harry’s legs and sips his tea. “It was worth it, then.”

 

“Yeah,” Harry mumbles, mostly to himself. He smiles. “All of it.”

 

**~*~**

 

Full of food and only slightly fuzzy-headed, they leave the Burrow several hours later, weighed down with leftovers and gifts. Draco is now in possession of his very first Weasley jumper, a thick, cable knit affair made of a soft grey wool that matches his eyes. Harry’s is green and features a small whiffle over the breast, which reminds him that they ought to go and check on the pointy horrors before they crash into bed and abandon the rest of the day.

 

The snow is still falling when they Apparate into the woods and they walk slowly, hand in hand with Murdoch at Harry’s side, through the sleeping town and down to Garrett’s. Gladys waves from her window and they wave back, letting themselves in and waiting for the swarm of whiffles. When they come, bouncing out of the walls and crackling their greeting, Draco abandons his things on the nearest table and heads for the stairs.

 

“Just give me five minutes and then come up, okay?”

 

“Okay,” Harry says, intrigued.

 

With the whiffles in tow, he makes careful progress to the kitchen and makes two cups of tea, looking around at the remnants of yesterday’s chaos and already looking forward to the time when they open for real. It’s going to be hard work, but he already knows he’s going to love it. He loves this strange little town and all the people in it who have gathered around two strangers and made them feel at home. Everyone needs a place, he supposes, and perhaps when you can’t find that place, you have to make it for yourself.

 

You can moan and complain, you can devote your life to fighting back, or you can let go. Draco doesn’t care what happens to Seddon any more, and neither does he, because everything he has right here makes her insignificant. Rose is optimistic despite her challenges and wants more than anything for everyone else to be happy. Hermione is just grateful to be her mother, even though her plans have altered beyond all recognition. Molly hopes for her children to live good, contented lives; she deserves that, and Harry is delighted to be able to give it to her.

 

He is finding his way. He is making tea on Christmas night, surrounded by his whiffles and his daft dog. The man he loves is just upstairs, doing something secret and intriguing, and together they have broken the curse of Garrett’s and the curse of sharing an office with Harry Potter. He wonders who will take over the room now that he and Draco have left it for good. Silently wishing them the best, he takes the cups upstairs and looks around for Draco. On the dark landing, he spots a strip of light under one of the doors and knocks on it gently.

 

“Come in,” Draco calls, and Harry pushes the door open.

 

“Wow.”

 

“Do you like it?” Draco asks, twisting an anxious hand into his hair.

 

Harry just stares. The empty room has been transformed into a beautiful little sanctuary. The bare walls have been painted in a deep red that matches the accents in the dining room, the floorboards have been scrubbed and varnished, and in the middle of it all sits a large wrought iron bed that just about fits in the space, piled with quilts, pillows and blankets in shades of soft blue and crisp white. On the windowsill, rows and rows of chunky church candles scatter the room with flickering light.

 

“Yes, I like it,” Harry says eventually. “When did you do this?”

 

Draco shrugs. “A couple of nights, a couple of electric screwdrivers.”

 

“What happened to the first one?”

 

“It exploded a little bit,” Draco admits. “Turns out you’re not supposed to use magic to make them more powerful.”

 

Harry grins and flops down across the bed. “This is brilliant.”

 

“I just through it might be nice to have somewhere to stay when we were too tired to go home. Somewhere other than the sofa downstairs,” Draco says.

 

“I feel bad… I only got you an umbrella and a tin of tea,” Harry sighs, tipping his head back to look at Draco.

 

“You got me a lot more than that, I assure you,” Draco says, eyes warm as he leans down and kisses Harry. “I’m getting in.”

 

Head spinning slightly, Harry sits up. Murdoch clatters up the stairs and races into the room, tail wagging.

 

“He’s going to sleep on the bed, isn’t he?” Draco asks wearily.

 

“Probably.”

 

Harry strips off his clothes and crawls into bed. The sheets are cold against his skin but Draco is warm where they draw close and tangle together. When Murdoch bounds onto the quilt, Draco rolls his eyes, but he scratches the daft dog’s head anyway and Harry just loves him a little bit more. Propping his head up on one hand, he regards Harry with the calm intensity he usually reserves for his more complicated experiments.

 

“So… we opened a café, saved a colony of whiffles and survived the strangest family Christmas I have ever been a part of,” he says, drumming his fingers against Harry’s hip in a contemplative rhythm.

 

“We did,” Harry agrees. His eyes are already growing heavy but he isn’t quite ready to give up the sight of Draco’s elegant profile in the candlelight.

 

“What are we going to do now?” Draco asks, catching a yawn against his forearm.

 

Murdoch yawns, too, shuffling into a tighter ball on the bed beside them.

 

“Anything we want,” Harry mumbles, smiling to himself. “Anything at all.”

 

He settles against the pillows and watches the flames dancing in the window until his eyes begin to close of their own accord. Pulling Draco close, he lets himself go, drifting into a peaceful sleep while the whiffles crackle and dance inside the walls.

 

**~*~**

_Through the years, we all will be together_

_If the fates allow_

_Hang a shining star upon the highest bough_

_And have yourself a merry little Christmas now_


End file.
